Right Now and Not Later
by 7.06andcounting
Summary: So what if Ponyboy thought I wore too much eye makeup and giggled and swore too much? I wasn't never gonna be like his mom and I sure as hell didn't wanna be like mine. So what's a girl supposed to do? I figured, if that philosophy was good enough for The Shangri Las, it was good enough for me.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I don't own anything. Well, some things I own, but not The Outsiders, that's for sure! Title from a track by The Shangri-Las, who seem to suit this OC pretty well. And, in case you were wondering - this fic is _not_ in the same universe as my Evie and/or Tim stories. Just general Outsiders-land. Please tell me what you think. **

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Darry Curtis didn't always hate me. But I knew exactly when he started to and I knew it was 'cause he found out; his attitude to me changed overnight and this one time a friend of his made a dirty comment that I caught the second half of, as I walked past the empty lot where they were hanging out.

Before that I was just his kid brother's friend.

After that I was the girl who lived in that house. With that woman.

I guess Darry and his friends were sixteen or so. The right kind of age to think they knew it all.

It didn't bother me too much; I was used to people's sideways glances and muttered comments. Besides, Pony didn't change and I still got to hang out with him and especially I still got to hang out at their place, where the kitchen smelled like I imagined those kitchens on TV would smell. I knew in my heart that June Cleaver's kitchen smelled of cookies baking, or maybe of something lemon scented and clean. Definitely not of spilled gin and musky, fat cigarettes.

We'd been on the north side of Tulsa for a minute by then. Enough time that everyone in the adult community had caught on, with the result that all the other kids had been warned to stay away from me. Ponyboy was floundering a little socially, being boosted a year, away from his friends. As for me, somewhere along the line I'd lost a year of schooling, not to mention my transcripts, so I was repeating. At twelve and ten, I guess we were the oldest and youngest in the class and ended up hanging out by default, when no one else was interested. That part wasn't new for me, it was how it had been at my last school and the one before, with the exception that there wasn't even a Ponyboy back in Tennessee or Kansas. I didn't remember all the other places.

And there was never anyone like Mrs. C.

I watched her. I was used to keeping quiet and watching. I think that's why Pony liked me; I didn't interrupt if he was reading or when he got to talking about something that only made sense to him. Watching Mrs. C. was something else though.

At first, I thought she was real clever. That she timed it so she never hit her boys, or screamed at them, in front of me. I knew all about 'keeping up appearances'. Patching up skinned knees and checking if anyone was hungry, okay, I had less experience of that kind of behavior. But gradually I realized that there was no front, what I was seeing was real life in their house.

What really blew my mind was something that happened one rainy day when Mr. C. came home early, the first time I'd met him. I automatically stood up, ready to split to wherever it was Pony would have to go, now that there was a man in the house. _Stay quiet. Keep quiet._ But Pony didn't move from the table where he was teaching me to play checkers, and his dad didn't put his hands on his mom –at least, not in any of the ways I was expecting.

Pony's dad kissed his mom on the nose, making her laugh and swat at the raindrops he shook onto her, and he said, "Hey, kiddo, who's your friend?" ruffling Pony's hair as he went past us and, "Nice to meet ya, sweetie," to me.

I never invited Ponyboy back to my house.

 **xxXxx**

"Lainey, you hear about Curtis?"

"What about him?" I narrowed my eyes at Beth Ann Harper when she waylaid me in the hallway outside the Art room. She had a mouth like a broken faucet – it never stopped running.

"You used to hang around with him, didn'tcha?" She cracked her gum, prolonging her moment, even thought the final bell had gone.

I shrugged. This was the longest I remembered living in one place and it was slightly unreal to think that I could count a friendship with anyone in _years_. Although Beth Ann was right about the ' _used to_ hang around ' part and that bothered me. Sometime in eighth grade, things shifted. That summer I was fourteen and the gap between me and Pony seemed to stretch. And when school started up this year, we weren't in so many classes together – I was struggling again and he was 'AP this and that', plus he was suddenly big enough to be included in his brothers' stuff and Darry made it plain, more'n once, that it was _guys'_ stuff.

"Spit it out, Beth Ann." I was impatient. She and I weren't close, but I knew her well enough to know she could go on for hours if I let her. The novelty of me being someone even the Northside moms warned their kids away from, had worn off. I'd found a level, or it had found me, and now my relationships with other kids were pretty much what you'd expect; if they didn't like me now, it was for myself, not because of where I lived. That seemed like a more honest reaction to me.

Beth Ann leaned in, eager to pass on her gossip. "So, Ponyboy wasn't in school, right? An' Martha's mom knows his mom, right? And Carl's dad works the same construction firm as Curtis's dad, so this is definitely true... _they're dead_. Ponyboy's mom and dad. _Dead_." She made a cutting gesture across her throat.

"The fuck they are!"

"Miss Coleman!" A passing teacher was just in time to hear my response to Beth Ann's lie. But I didn't hear what else he said, I was running, away from Beth Ann's delighted face and towards the only place I could think of that would make this _not be true_.

 **xxXxx**

There were too many cars outside, that was the first thing that was wrong. Then there was the parade of neighbor women carrying tinfoil wrapped plates and casserole dishes up the porch steps, as I stood on the other side of the street, shivering, watching the house.

I jumped when a quiet voice said, "You want a weed?"

I nodded dumbly and Johnny handed me a cigarette and his lighter. My hand was shaking and he took the lighter back and held the flame for me.

"What...?" was as much as I could get out.

He swallowed hard. "There was a car wreck. Out by the Brumly turn off. The cops was chasin' some guy and he spun into 'em."

I shook my head, glad to spot the flaw in the story. "The truck's right there."

"Wasn't their car. Mr. C. borrowed a real nice–" He broke off, swiped his hand across his nose, started again. "They was goin' out. Like a date, Soda said. It was a surprise. Dancing, somewhere..." He made the mistake of catching my eye and we were stuck there for a second or two, both of us, both knowing exactly how Mr. C.'s laugh would have sounded as he swept Mrs. C. off for an evening of fun. How she would have put on scent and told Darry to watch his brothers and—

I dropped my smoke, stumbling back a step. "Sorry," I mumbled as Johnny scooped the stick up. I waved it away, told him I didn't want it anymore and he pinched out the end and stuck it in his jacket pocket. _Waste not, want not_. I asked him if he was going inside and he frowned:

"I dunno. They got people..."

I chewed on my thumbnail, watching the front door again.

"We could wait a while. See if it quietens down any." Johnny jerked his head towards the end of the street and I fell in next to him as he started for the empty lot.

We sat under the stunted tree that stood to one side and Johnny offered me the weed back. I shook my head, but when he pulled a can of beer out of the other pocket, I said yes. He punched into it with the church key all boys seem to keep as a key ring and offered me first sip.

I closed my eyes and swallowed. I knew it wouldn't be enough. Nothing would ever be enough. I watched Johnny down the rest of the can and I sat on my hands to try and warm them.

He threw a couple of sticks onto the makeshift fire pit and pulled out his lighter again. It was getting colder quickly, as it got dark. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been here when we had a fire. Pretending to camp out and toast marshmallows seemed like a stupid kids' game, all of a sudden.

For a moment I wanted to put my hand into the flames, to see if they were real. If I could do it, if I could prove that the fire was fake, wouldn't that make the rest of the day fake too? Wouldn't that mean that everything could be okay again?

"Hey, kiddos." Two-Bit's greeting was subdued as he dropped down next to Johnny.

"Did you come from the house?" I heard myself ask. "You seen Pony?"

"Earlier." He shrugged. "What you want me to say? They're all a mess." The three of us watched the flames. Two-Bit pulled out a fifth of whisky and offered it to Johnny, then put the top back when he'd taken his own swig.

"What about me?" I demanded.

"You sure, kid? This ain't pop, you know."

"I ain't a kid! I'm as old as Johnny!" I snapped. "Just 'cause I'm in Pony's grade..."

"Whoa. Okay. I hear ya. I ain't one to judge by grades, you know that, girl." Two-Bit held his hand up, making peace as he held the bottle out to me. "Here. Knock yourself out."

I swallowed. Hard. Hard enough to wash down the evil, bitter feeling that was rising in me.

A fourth figure approached the fire, blond hair catching the light. Dallas didn't say a word as he sat down, just held out his hand for the whisky. I passed it over, avoiding his eye.

He tilted the bottle towards the fire, in a salute. "The last decent parents in the world," was his acid laden toast.

"Hey now," Two-Bit protested, snatching the bottle back and wiping the top dramatically before he drank again.

"Ha, 'pologize." Dallas was already drunk. "To the last decent parents in the fucking world, _excepting_ Two-Bit's mom." He curled his lip. "But not in any fucking way, _in_ cluding mine."

"Or mine." Johnny added, real quiet. His eyes were shining in the firelight.

I hugged my knees and rested my head down on them.

"How 'bout you, Lain?" Dallas asked, slyly. "Where's the beautiful Stella, on the list of decent parents?"

I shot to my feet. "Fuck you, Dallas Winston! You can fuck right off!" I stormed away from the fire, the lot and the conversation, wishing I could leave the pain that radiated out of the Curtis house behind me in the same way.

He caught up with me as I made it to the sidewalk on the opposite corner, away from North St Louis, towards anywhere, anywhere else. I yanked my arm out of his grip.

"Lainey. I didn't mean anythin'. I'm sorry, yeah?"

I cussed him again, walking fast. He kept pace with me easily.

"Come on, cut me some slack. Don't you think I'm fucked over by this too? This whole thing...Mr. and Mrs. C...This is...fucked up." The tone in his voice caught me, made me stop. Dallas moved closer, seemed like he was genuinely distressed.

"I can't believe they're gone." I couldn't believe I'd said that out loud.

He hooked his arm around my neck, pulling me against his chest. "I know."

"I mean, like, just _gone_..."

"I know." He patted my back, then his hand slid down to my butt.

I shoved him away from me hard, with both hands. "I don't fuckin' believe you!"

"What?" Dallas tried to sound like he didn't know what my problem was. "C'mon Lainey. You know Sylvia don't get me, like you do."

I gave him the finger and stalked away.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time I'd begun to understand there were two kinds of 'guy stuff', I was already pretty sure that Darry had started including Pony in his plans expressly to get him away from me. But that might have been paranoia, because Sodapop hung out with them too and _he_ didn't have a problem with me.

Soda knew everything well before then— _that woman, in that house_ —I was certain. 'Cause Steve Randle knew for sure; he made the same kind of smutty remarks as Darry's friend. And if Steve knew, then Soda knew. But if I was at their house, Soda just treated me like he did Pony, which mostly meant he'd let us choose what to watch on TV, 'cause Pony was the baby in their family and I could see that got him special privileges even if he denied it.

And somehow, Soda picked up from his mom that I was maybe in a similar category to Johnny Cade, and if there was extra pizza or cake, he slid it my way.

I'd have died rather than take charity from Darry but wasn't too proud to take it from Soda.

If I stayed where I oughta in school, I could even have been Soda's friend. Except there would still have been Steve. So I guess I'd been lucky to have Pony as an 'in' to that house. But after a few of his mumbled excuses about whatever mysterious activity was only open to the male population, I got the message. I missed going over there but I found other things to do. I turned out to be good at the other kind of 'guy stuff'.

See, there was all the shit like football in the empty lot—or what they called football but looked more like an excuse for wrestling in the mud, to me. Anyway, football, poker sessions, pissing contests, whatever activities you were only qualified to do if you had the right kind of junk in your jeans and definitely _not_ invited to if you had tits.

And then there was the stuff that still involved all those body parts, but which meant playing by a whole different set of rules.

I knew what was what long before most of the girls in my grade, one way or another.

When I was twelve and a half and crept into the Curtis's kitchen one morning when I should have been in school, Mrs. C. took it in her stride and held a cold, wet cloth to the bruise coming up on my cheek, like I'd seen her do for football injuries on her boys. And other, unexplained, hurts on other boys. Unexplained and unremarkable. I would never have gone to her just because I'd been clouted.

Finally, when I got up the courage to whisper that for some reason this particular backhander was making me bleed somewhere completely unconnected to my face, she took me into her bathroom and explained that the timing was a coincidence. And then she told me things about my body that freaked me out some, followed by things about boys and men in general that were less news to me than she probably expected. I wondered if maybe she'd got some of it wrong. 'Cause I already knew for certain that some of the stuff she was talking about had nothing to do with making babies and plenty to do with Friday night pay packets and drunken shrieking. But clarifying the sex information was less pressing than what was happening to me right then.

"Didn't your mother tell you to expect this?" Mrs. C. asked quietly, as she provided me with sanitary products. I stared.

She'd forgotten to maintain the lie.

I guess I'd known that she didn't believe the story I'd had to parrot since I was old enough to speak, that Stella was my sister, but she'd never called me on it. And I realized that if she knew that, she knew the rest about Stella too, the things that made Darry and his friends snigger. The late night 'visitors'; the 'parties' with only one guest; the money that hadn't been around before some gentleman caller called.

Nobody knew the biggest secret though. That one didn't even have a lie to cover it, it was buried so deep on its own.

I shook my head at Mrs. C, unable to convey the lack of conversation in my house while I was sitting in the warm atmosphere that wrapped around the Curtis home. In the past week, I'd only crossed paths with Stella twice. One late night, when I was trying to find something to eat after I thought she'd passed out in her room. And this morning, when my shower had apparently woken her visitor and earned me the whack that had brought me scurrying here, under the delusion that I had some kind of internal injury.

Both times the extent of our conversation had been, ' _Fuck off out of here'_ from her and silence from me.

Mrs. C. let me stay curled up on their couch all day, watching TV, but I disappeared before Pony got home from school, vaguely embarrassed about what was going on with me.

I did what I always did, checked the house carefully for signs of life before sneaking in. Afternoons were usually okay, unless Stella was on a serious roll.

I shoved the chair under my door handle, which was all the lock I had, and retreated to the corner of my mattress where, if I tried real hard, I could summon up the fantasy world where I was Ponyboy's sister. I'd still be older – there'd be some explanation for why I wasn't as smart and we were in the same grade, because I couldn't let go of that part of reality, I still wanted him around me in the school day. But when I imagined the evenings and weekends, he became slightly less important, because what I really wanted, by being that fairy-tale Curtis sister, was to have Mrs. C. as my mother.

Mr. C.'s presence was vague. Even in my imagination, a father figure was too mythical for me to flesh out.

Quite often, in these daydreams, Darry went away somewhere. Military school was a favorite choice of mine. I thought that, or the reformatory, might be a just punishment for the fact that he looked down his nose at me and tried to stop Pony hanging out with me.

But by the time Ponyboy was well and truly 'one of the guys', I'd grown out of daydreaming and discovered instead what it meant to be _one of the girls_.

Periods at twelve didn't make the difference, whatever Mrs. C. said about 'becoming a woman'. Tits at thirteen, that was the turning point. That was when I became visible, when the comments flung my way stopped being about Stella and started being about me. Or at least what guys wanted to do to me. The only surprising part was that guys being interested turned out to be a pass to a _girls'_ world that I'd never been included in before.

I wasn't stupid. I knew if I was invited to a party, it was as bait; there'd be some particular boy who had expressed an interest in me and he was the one who was desperately desired at Sonia's birthday, or Carol's 'parents-out-of-town-under-no-circumstance-will-you-hold-a-party' celebration. I didn't care, I had nothing better to do with my time.

By fourteen I was as tall as I was likely to ever get, which was tall enough to look Stella in the eye and big enough to borrow her shoes when she was passed out, although her clothes were still big on me. If I still bothered to pretend, in some fantasy or other, Mrs. C would have taken me shopping for a bra, for underwear to replace the kiddie stuff I'd grown out of. The reality was a handful of notes flung my way and a snarled, _'Christ, girl, you like shit. Get something covering those puppies before you get arrested,'_ after I made the mistake of Stella seeing me one morning before I was fully dressed.

The sales lady made sure I understood about bra sizes, but didn't seem to approve my choices when I purchased my own versions of the lace concoctions that dripped from the rail in our bathroom. I thought they were pretty and I liked the way they made me look.

Boys liked them too, although they were less interested in how they looked _on_ and more concerned with how they came _off_.

I had an advantage, it seemed to me, because I was armed with better knowledge and lower expectations than most of the girls my age. They were always being disappointed by some kid who they thought was gonna act like a Disney prince but who was really only interested in getting drunk or getting laid. Or both. Mostly both.

So what? Guys wanted what they wanted and if they were desperate enough to pay, why shouldn't they? Maybe not as obviously as Stella's various visitors. I knew teenage greasers didn't have pockets full of cash and I didn't expect the kind of jewelry or 'presents' that littered our place, when she was stringing along some easy mark. But I never had to open my own wallet for movie tickets or milkshakes. Or weeds or booze. Or even the occasional hit record, and once a transistor radio, when the boy who wanted my attention was a particularly good shoplifter.

Notice I said 'teenage greasers'. That was something else I knew more about than the other girls. Plenty of them thought that hooking a Soc was the way to go; fancy cars and fancy houses gotta equal a fancy boyfriend, right? _Wrong_.

The richer the john, the tighter he held onto his wallet. I was way ahead of them there, even before I'd heard a couple of chicks crying in the bathroom at school. Greaser guys were up front about what they wanted and I could dig that. I thought a mutually agreeable deal was more honest than some hard-on in a Madras button-down, promising to respect you in the morning. So, I took to hanging out at greaser parties, when I wasn't wanted at home, and that's where I ran into Dallas, first time around. Although he didn't know it, right off.

Here's the thing. You put on a little eye liner, rat your hair just a bit and suddenly it's like you're a whole new person. Literally.

Dallas Winston was a walking cloud of cologne and booze fumes, when he homed in on me. Laid down some God-awful line about some injury he was nursing, from horse-riding, that needed 'a woman's touch'. Yeah, right.

I curled my lip at him. "I seen you in your jocks an' it ain't nothin' to write home about."

That got his attention, swimmy as it was. "Huh? I'm pretty sure I'd remember taking my pants off for you, baby."

"Not me, _baby_ ," I shot back. "You was dropping 'em for an older woman that day."

"What?"

"Do you seriously not know who I am? I was there the day you sat on a freaking bee and Pony's old lady hadda get the stinger out your ass."

He blinked at me. "Lainey?" Dallas creased up. "Holy fuck. You, like...grew." Since his eyes had gone to my chest again, I knew which part of me he was talking about. He waved the bottle. "An' it wasn't no pansy bee. That was a fucking hornet. And it wasn't in my ass. It was my leg."

"Right." I nodded. "Still hadda take your pants off, though."

He grinned around the neck of the bottle, swallowing long gulps of rum, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah, but that was then, baby. I...grew, too."

It made me want to laugh that I saw the other guys more often now than I did in the days when I was in and out of the Curtis house. Of course back then, Ponyboy was left behind when the 'big boys' headed out on an adventure, and I wasn't more'n Pony's tagalong. But, as Dallas said, that was then...

He paused, later, when we were in some dark room somewhere, something occurring to him. "Hey. My old man _knows_ your sister. Don't that makes us step relations, or somethin'?"

I laughed. "Your old man couldn't afford her. I don't think you got nothing to worry about."

I was two weeks off fifteen. Dallas freaking Winston. I figured I was at least in safe hands. Various girls' bathrooms had enough graffiti about him that he _must_ have known what he was doing. So, it might as well be him. Although frankly, I wondered what all the fuss was about.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Quick reminder, Will Rogers was a three year high school back then. So, Lainey (held back) in grade nine is still in middle school. She wouldn't see the older boys in the gang on a daily basis. Or their girls.**

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I wasn't sure what motivated Dallas to stay quiet about us hooking up. Maybe it was a simple lack of opportunity—after all, it was a given that guys usually liked to run their mouths about that kind of thing. In fact, it sometimes seemed like they got more out of the bragging than the fooling around.

A whole week went past. Our paths didn't cross.

More importantly, I hadn't been slapped in the ladies' room at the Tastee Freez by Sylvia Becker, who seemed to think she had a little claim flag planted on him somewhere. Not that I was afraid of her. But when I saw her there, she was still wearing his ring on a chain around her neck, which I figured must mean he wasn't on the outs with her. And maybe he liked it that way, and that was why he hadn't broadcast what we'd done.

Or maybe he'd simply been too drunk to remember.

But _that_ didn't explain why he turned up in the early hours, another week later, tapping on my bedroom window. I mean, I knew that he knew where I lived. Every pair of balls on the North side knew where this house was.

"What the hell are you doin' here?" I couldn't sound half as pissed as I was, since I had to breathe the words quietly. If Stella knew there was a guy at my window, there'd be hell to pay an' then some.

"Lemme in, doll." It wasn't a question because Dallas went right ahead and pushed the window higher, then boosted himself over the sill.

I took the opportunity to kick him when he landed in a heap on the floor. "You can't be here."

He squinted up at me, partly because I didn't have a shade on the ceiling globe and partly because his left eye was bruised and swelling. "'S'okay," he slurred. "I'll be real quiet, I promise. I just need somewhere to lay low."

"Not here." I tried to drag him to his feet, but he was like a rag doll; climbing in the window seemed to have taken the last of his energy. Or possibly it was because he stank of beer.

I sat on the bed and wrapped my arms around myself, then started chewing on my thumbnail as I tried not to imagine what would happen if Stella found him in here. I wondered if I could keep the door shut with the power of my stare.

Dallas dragged himself across the couple of feet of ratty carpet between us and made an attempt to grope my leg. I kicked him again. He laughed, low in his throat.

"Never had you pegged as the type to kick a man when he's down," he chuckled. "Lock the door, baby, we'll be sweet." His eyes followed mine to the chair wedged under my door handle. "Shit. That all you got? That ain't gonna keep anyone out..."

I don't know what he saw in my expression, but he trailed off and made an effort to focus, getting all the way to a sitting position, jagged elbows draped across bony knees. "Who we tryin' a keep out, doll? The sister or the customers?"

"She ain't my sister." The words were out before I made the decision to say them.

"I figured. But the question stands." The laughter was gone and he didn't seem half as loaded no more.

"Both, then."

Dallas nodded, slowly. "I got the picture."

"She don't like 'em to know there's anyone else in the house." _Stay quiet. Keep quiet._ Not to mention that the idea she was old enough to have a teenage daughter was beyond horrifying to her.

He watched the door for a second or two. "She got one in tonight?"

I nodded.

Dallas glanced around the room, his jaw shifting as he narrowed his eyes at the chipped night stand, then the flimsy door on the closet. I thought he was coming to the same conclusion I'd reached a long time ago; there was nothing I could drag in front of, or block the door with. But then he reached for the underside of the night stand, pulling on the piece of wood that should have fitted flush across the bottom, but which had been loose for as long as I'd lived in the house.

The crack as he snapped it across his knee was the loudest noise we'd made. I caught my breath, not understanding, until he jammed the tapered ends under my bedroom door. "Should work better'n that anyway." He jerked his chin towards the chair. I wondered how he knew.

He crawled up onto the bed.

" _Dallas_..."

"Just gimme an hour, doll..." He was asleep.

I sat, rigid with fear, for exactly that hour and then I shook Dallas. Told him he had to leave. "Go sleep at the Curtis place," I pleaded.

"Like fucking Randle ain't got dibs on that couch," he scoffed. Yeah. I hated Steve for that too. Dallas pulled me down, slid my hand into his jeans. "C'mon, play nice...just a little..."

"How come you ain't at Sylvia's pad? Don't you go with her?"

If he heard the challenge, he didn't care. He just chuckled low in his throat. "You kidding? Apart from she's on the top floor an' shares with her sister, her dad sleeps with a shotgun next to him." Then it seemed to occur to him that it was maybe a little weird to be discussing his girlfriend with the chick who was jerking him off. "Anyway, doll, she wouldn't dig this tonight. Not like you."

xxXxx

The noise of breaking glass in the kitchen, followed by a curse, woke me with a start the next morning. Dallas was, thankfully, long gone. I hesitated, until I was sure I could only hear one voice.

Stella was standing at the sink, looking at the pieces of a glass all around her feet, wearing a long sheer robe over her lacy underwear. She looked like a pin up, whereas, the one time I'd tried it on in her absence, I just resembled some kind of chiffon ghost.

"Stella? Don't move, you'll cut yourself." I grabbed a dustpan from one of the cabinets and swept up the glass. She blinked at me with heavy lidded eyes.

"I thought I fucking told you to keep clear?"

"Yesterday." I backed up. "That was yesterday."

She poured herself another glass of water. "Oh, whatever. Rodney went home to his wife, anyway. Just stay out my frigging way, my head's killing me." She wandered off towards her bedroom.

xxXxx

In the drug store, I looked over the cosmetics, turning the packages over, sounding out the names and wondering what made one frosted pink lipstick a 'Candy Kiss' and another a 'Summer Dream'.

And maybe I'd seen them go in, from down the street, and maybe I wasn't really in the market for a new lipstick, but I couldn't help it, I'd followed them.

"Do you think this one is okay?" I asked, holding out the Candy Kiss towards the two older girls.

Sylvia swung around, after shooting a look of surprise at her friend. "Yeah," she said. "It's okay."

"It'll melt," the other one chipped in, "get somethin' Cover Girl instead." She looked me over more closely. "An' get the palest one, then you can go heavier on the liner." She was coated in eyeliner.

"Just 'cause you read Patti Boyd's column don't make it law, Evie," said Sylvia with a laugh, reaching for another color entirely. "And it only melted 'cause you left it in Steve's car."

"Nah, it melted _while_ we was in the car..." Evie fanned herself dramatically and smiled a wicked smile.

Sylvia snorted so loudly the sales lady looked our way. "Thanks a lot! Now she's watching us an' this kid wanted to lift something."

"Oh, I got dough," I said.

"So what?" She shoved Evie towards the register and, as soon as the view was blocked, motioned for me to put the lipstick in my pocket. I did so.

The two of them sauntered out of the store and I wandered behind.

"You owe me a nickel for the gum," complained Evie good naturedly, elbowing Sylvia.

"You bought gum? I thought you was stocking up on rubbers."

"That's a guy's job."

"Is it?" I blurted and they glanced back in surprise, not having noticed me following.

"Sure it is," said Evie firmly. "An' don't let 'em tell you otherwise. They want it, it's the least they can do. You don't wanna be fronting the likes of that nosy bitch—" she jerked her thumb at the drug store "—for 'behind the counter' shit."

I stopped walking, because I could see behind them.

As they got to the corner of the street, two figures pushed off the car where they'd been leaning. Evie squealed and ran into Steve Randle's arms, kissing him. Dallas got more of a verbal greeting.

Sylvia planted her hands on her hips. "You never called."

"Babe..." seemed to be enough of an explanation, or maybe apology, as far as Dallas was concerned.

She sniffed. "I hope you got your ass handed to you."

"Me, babe?" he grinned. "You know I always come out on top." He winked at her with his black eye. And—as she ducked in under his arm to the back seat of the car, to go wherever it was they were all going—he looked back up the street and winked at me too.

xxXxx

It was cold. If it rained there would be ice. Maybe snow.

Mrs. C. told me once she hadn't ever seen snow before she moved to Tulsa when she got married. I forgot where she said she grew up.

Well, I hadn't ever been in a church before and it felt like the coldest place on Earth.

People stood, sat, stood again.

Ponyboy bawled. The whole time. Soda too. That seemed okay to me, seemed right, although my own eyes stayed shocked and dry. I could only see the side of Darry's head from where I was, in back. His jaw worked, like he was grinding his teeth, but he never cried either.

When it was all over, I trailed out, lost in the crowd of people, not wanting to go back to the house. Their house. Her house.

I saw Dallas duck around the side of the building and headed after him.

He and Johnny Cade were cupping their hands around his lighter, trying to get their weeds lit. I hadn't spoken to Dallas since the day of the accident, when I'd been pissed with him for trying to cop a feel while I was upset. Or maybe I was pissed at him for another reason, that I hadn't yet admitted to myself.

Regardless, he handed over his cigarette for me to take a drag, like we were best buddies.

Johnny muttered something about heading over to the wake.

"Fuck that," Dallas spat out, then to me, "You wanna go to a party at Buck's?" He shrugged, like it was of no interest to him, either way. Maybe it wasn't.

I had never felt less like partying in my life. And never needed to more.

I went with him, to his buddy's place and when the door opened to us, said buddy took one look at me and groaned.

"It's like some kind of disease with you, Winston. What'd I tell ya about bringing the underage ones here?"

"Fuck off." Dallas shouldered past him and led me inside. He gave me a drink, which I downed. After he grabbed a second round, he cornered a shifty looking guy in a cowboy hat who argued for all of five seconds, before handing over something that disappeared inside Dallas's fist.

At a table in the back, Dallas uncurled his palm to reveal the red pills. "You want?"

I asked what they were, before realizing how babyish that made me sound. He bared his sharp teeth, looking anything but happy.

"Tell ya what they are, they're quicker'n that." Dallas nudged the glass of whiskey on the table, before using it to wash down one of the pills. "Reds," he added, when he saw I was still waiting. "Just barbs, is all. Seems like this is a day that deserves taking down. And out. But," he glanced back at the bar area, "if you wanted 'up', Davey'll have some speed on him."

I shook my head. "D'you think we shoulda have gone to the house?"

" _Shoulda_?" He glared at me. "Where's the 'shoulda' in all this? You think they _shoulda_ died?"

"Why'd you go then? Why'd you go to the funeral?" I was stung; when had this all become my fault?

Dallas let his head fall back, stared at the smoke stained ceiling. "To see if it was all some huge fucking joke. Like the rest of life."

I touched his hand gently. Until he opened it and I could pick up the Seconal.

* * *

 **A/N: BadDallas is...bad.**

 **I'm so sorry this took so long, if you know me from Evie, you'll know I usually like to update more regularly. But the next chapter is just about ready, so if you're still in, that shouldn't be so long. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Weird day and time for me to be updating, so I hope everyone's out there!**

* * *

" _Ponyboy_ _Curtis_!" I put on a deep, official-sounding voice, as I sneaked up behind him. " _Are you supposed to be here, young man?"_ Pony jumped out his skin and then did a real amusing double take as I added, "Hi".

His buddy looked round too. In fact, Curly Shepard plain out an' stared at me. Interesting choice, company-wise, for the youngest Curtis. Not to mention the fact that they were hanging out in the lot at The Dingo.

But then, in school, I noticed most of the kids had been giving him a wide berth, like they though becoming an orphan overnight might be catching or something. Maybe Curly Shepard, who was held back a year like me, had filled in for Pony's fairweather friends. Most likely he was too insensitive to even notice Mr. and Mrs. C. were gone.

I nodded at the two of them, adding, "How's it goin'?" They were splitting a Pepsi, by the look of it, so it wasn't going that great, in my opinion. They were smoking independently though. I asked for a weed, leaning in to get a light from Pony's.

There was a whistle and, "Lainey, baby, whatcha doin' over there in the play pen?" followed by, "C'mon over here, doll, lemme light ya up."

Pony's eyes went wide and Curly looked over my shoulder to where the shouts were coming from.

I didn't turn around, just blew out the smoke from my first drag. I'd already seen who was, and wasn't, in the vicinity.

"Uh, you know those guys?" Pony kept his voice low. I shrugged lightly. He was making an effort not to make eye contact with the older greasers, I knew. The Dingo had its own geography, unseen borderlines and territory that anyone with any sense knew about. Maybe every single one of the guys there would stand shoulder to shoulder, if a gang of Socs rolled up looking for a fight, but without that common enemy, there were old grudges and turf wars to take into account.

Precisely why I'd been able to make him jump; no way he was allowed to hang out here, even on a Friday night.

Ponyboy sucked on his weed. "You weren't in Math. Nor yesterday."

"I got suspended." I watched his eyes go wide again.

"Was that you fighting in the girls' bathroom?" blurted Curly. I laughed in delight.

"Naw. That was two real prissy cheerleaders slapping and hair pulling over some football player, is what I heard...Why? I look like I been in a fight to you, Curly?" I dared him to look me over, tilting my hips just slightly. There was another catcall from the other side of the lot. Curly mumbled something that might have been an apology.

"Why then?" Pony asked sharply.

I made an innocent face, like I was unjustly treated. "'Non-regulation skirt length', can you imagine?"

"Shit, Lainey. That ain't worth getting suspended over."

"Well, I think I'm gonna haveta disagree with you, Ponyboy. I think I have a god-given right to wear whatever I want to wear and if ol' Principal Goatface is too much of a perv to stop looking at my legs, that's his problem. In my opinion."

Pony's face closed off some and he frowned, like he had more to say, but wouldn't.

I shrugged and finally glanced over my shoulder to where there were a couple of cars pulled up together in front of one of the picnic tables. One of them belonged to a guy out of Brumly that I wasn't all fired keen on seeing again, tell the truth.

"I don't think you oughta hang around with those hoods."

I snapped my eyes back to Ponyboy in surprise. "I don't think you oughta be here at all, Ponyboy Curtis. Darry know you're here?" Yeah, he looked a little shifty, I thought. Busted. "You wanna go somewhere else?" I asked, before I thought it through.

There was all the shrugging and 'I don't care', 'I dunno', that boys do. I suggested we walk down to the park. It was too cold to stand around for no reason, but way too early for me to want to go home.

Curly made an effort to get a step ahead of Ponyboy, so as to walk next to me. I could smell the cologne he'd doused himself in, and the fact that he hadn't bothered to wash before doing so. I wondered idly what this walk would translate into, when he got to talking bull with his buddies. Fuck, he could tell 'em what he liked, but I had no intention of cozying up to Curly Shepard, ever. He never had any dough an' was a shit shoplifter, besides.

Truthfully, I was on the rag and no guy was getting near enough tonight for me to have to tell him 'no'. Sometimes they got pissy when that happened and sometimes they wanted something else instead. One time that hood out of Brumly made me put my mouth on him and I didn't like that. Another reason the park seemed like a better deal.

There were some kids over to one side, poking about in a car engine, under the trees. Curly jogged over and caught back up to the two of us as we sat on the edging of the fountain. He held up a can of Grain Belt in each hand.

"Phil owed me," he said, by way of explanation, although it didn't look like Pony knew who Phil was, any more'n I did. Dropping onto the ground, Curly punched into the first can with a church key from his pocket, then wiped the edge with his sleeve and held it out to me. "Ladies first."

I grinned. "Nah. You knock yourself out, sport." And I took the fifth of vodka out of my pocket book. Curly winked at me and chugged for a couple of seconds. Then he noticed Pony was just looking at the second beer.

"What? You wanted a Pabst?"

Pony hurriedly punched the can and took an experimental sip. I caught Curly's eye. Both of us were thinking the same thing; both of us were older than Ponyboy and neither of us had Darry Curtis on our backs. We pretended not to notice that Pony's face screwed up, which he disguised by wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

"Here," I said with a smile, offering him the bottle instead. "Maybe you'll like this better."

Neither me nor Curly could pretend any more, when Pony swallowed mightily and immediately gagged.

"What the hell're you doin'?" I laughed. "It only _looks_ like water." Curly just howled with laughter. Pony blinked, coughing, and smiled sheepishly. I took the bottle back and put the beer firmly in his hand. "Go slow."

It was almost relaxing, to hang out with the two of them. They were younger than the guys I'd been around lately and their yakking hopped from school, to sports, to music and back again. Not that they weren't talking themselves up, to impress me, but they didn't quite have a grip on what would actually impress a girl. A girl who was interested, I mean.

I shared the vodka—it wasn't like Stella ever counted the empties. By the time it was full dark, Curly had gotten louder, while Pony turned...talkier. At one point he tried to explain the plot of some movie and got so animated he fell off the wall and landed on his ass, hard.

Curly about killed himself laughing and climbed up on the wall, to wobble along and prove he was in perfect control of his own balance.

I shrugged and put on a bored voice. "That ain't nothin'. I heard your brother walked across the 11th street bridge...on the railing."

"Tim?" Curly spluttered. "No way. He don't like heights."

"Oh, yeah? That don't seem very tuff." I smiled to myself as the regret of telling me _anything_ that put down the legend of Tim Shepard washed over his face. "...Looks like you could do it," I teased.

He puffed up a little. "I totally would. I ain't got a problem with heights, not one bit."

"'S'true," Pony nodded. "You oughta see him climb the ropes in Gym class."

I took the bottle from Pony and sipped delicately, keeping my eyes on Curly. I saw some actress do that in some movie, I forget which one, but once I worked out how to do it without crossing my eyes, I figured it for a sophisticated move. It certainly held Curly's attention.

"Shame we ain't got no ropes here, then..." I let him keep watching as I shifted my gaze to the nearest sidewalk.

"Easy!" he scoffed, making his way over to the telephone pole.

Well, what could I do but follow? Behind me, Ponyboy tripped over his feet a little. Once it was obvious what was being attempted, a couple of the kids from the group by the trees loped over to cheer on the climbing.

Curly was actually pretty fast going up, considering there wasn't anything for him to hold onto. Of course, that was also the reason he came down even quicker. And apparently, there are some noises that your brain just knows and recognizes, regardless of the fact that your ears have never heard them before. Bones breaking, for instance.

The other boys went very quiet, which made it worse, because Curly's voice, as he cussed and groaned, didn't sound quiet right. His face was the color of putty—and so, when I turned around to investigate the retching noise, was Ponyboy's.

I still didn't recognize 'Phil' or whoever the other kid was, but I was grateful they remembered they had a car and that they dragged Curly off with them. Because my attention was suddenly on a boneless Curtis boy, with his head in the gutter.

Getting him to his feet wasn't difficult. Getting him travelling in the right direction was harder. He wavered across the sidewalk. We only had a couple of blocks to go, but it felt like a trek across a continent.

"...time'sit?" he asked, as we finally hit the corner of North St. Louis, passing the empty lot. I told him I had no idea. And then I worked out he was worried about his curfew. He had a curfew.

Every step nearer his house, I thought about the fact I hadn't been in there since the accident, three months before. I mean, I hadn't been in there for a while before, but it was still fully occupied then. Still a family home. At least Pony was walking on his own as we got to the gate, and I hissed at him to go right inside and to bed. With any luck, he'd manage to do it without getting caught. Except,

"You lost the ability to tell time or something, kiddo?" Darry stood up, from the shadows on the porch. His eyes went from Pony, lurching up the path, to me, or more specifically my shoes, my skirt and my face. In that order.

Suddenly I knew my eyeliner was smudged and my hair was mussed.

"Where were you?"

"Park." At least Pony had the sense to only say that, I thought, as he made it to the steps. But then he went on, "Curly fell'n...broke..." and from exactly one step up, Ponyboy heaved into the flower bed to one side, although God knew he had to be empty by then. He sagged at the knees and Darry reached out a hand and hauled him the rest of the way up to the porch by the back of his T shirt, with an explosive cuss.

He wasn't particularly known for having a filthy mouth, Darry Curtis, but he obviously kept some in reserve, for special occasions. Shame Pony probably wouldn't remember.

Darry's eyes slid back to me. "You got him hanging out with Shepards now?" He grit his teeth and yelled Soda's name over his shoulder. When Soda appeared, he shoved Pony towards him. "Get him into bed. Do _not_ let him puke on the rug, y'hear?"

"Where're you going?" Soda protested as Darry started down the steps.

"I'mma walk Elaine home." Wait, _what_? "Don't go out. I mean it, Soda. You and me, we're not done talking yet."

"You ain't walking me!" I squeaked, backing the hell up.

Darry glanced at my stilettos. "You need me to get the truck out?"

I took a few steps away from him, backwards, holding my hands out to emphasize my walking ability. "No. Thanks all the same. I meant, I don't need _you_ to walk me. I'm good from here."

"Uh, huh." He fell in next to me anyhow. I made for the corner but he easily kept pace with me. His cologne was nicer than Curly's and underlined with soap, not sweat, although I was mad at myself for noticing.

"What'd ya think I do on all the other nights of the week?" I demanded, humiliated by his babysitting routine. I was fifteen, for Christ's sake!

"I don't wanna think about it," he said, perfectly calm. "But from my front yard? My problem."

"I ain't your problem."

"You get my kid brother involved with the Shepard gang, _that's_ my problem."

The injustice of it stung, but I bit my lip; I wasn't about to rat Pony out. "Why're you mad at Soda?" I asked instead, trying to imagine why anyone would be mad with Sodapop. Darry glanced across at me in surprise.

"He and I are disagreeing about something." Which was, of course, no answer. He breathed out kind of heavy. I couldn't exactly think of it as a sigh. "For what it's worth, Lainey, I don't think _you_ oughta be hanging around with the Shepard gang."

I laughed. Just a little. As opposed to hanging around with _who_? People like—currently in the cooler, again—Dallas Winston? Or any of the other assorted JDs in town? Maybe it would be fun to hook up with Tim Shepard, just to get under Darry's skin. I smirked at him. "Would you be happy to know I ain't never been in the same room with Tim Almighty? I can't hardly help that Curly an' me got classes together." One. That he never attended.

"Things are tough enough. I can't afford Pony to be getting into trouble."

"It was Curly got into trouble," I muttered, but Darry didn't even seem to hear.

He spoke quietly. "Lainey. Don't get him drunk again. You know my mom wouldn't've liked it."

I nearly tripped over. A small wave rolled up and over me. It felt like sadness but burned like pain. How could he, why would he even say that to me?

"If you come any nearer," I pointed down the street, "Stella's gonna see you with me an' I'm gonna catch it."

He stopped dead.

I shrugged. "What can I say, she's a hypocrite as well as a whore." And I was made of stone. Cold, hard stone. He could keep his fucking disapproval.

He looked over at the house, then—briefly—at me, told me 'good night', like we'd been chatting real civilized.

"Whatever," I muttered, crossing the street without looking back.

I blamed him for distracting me when I went in the back door without checking first. Stella looked me over, from where she sat at the kitchen table, thumbing through a leather wallet. I kept my head down and made for my room.

"Lainey." She beckoned me back. And to my immense surprise she counted off a couple of bills and held them out. "Get yerslef a decent haircut," she said, reaching for her drink before she tossed the next few words my way. " _You can keep the shoes._ "


	5. Chapter 5

When I was a little kid, I used to wonder about all the fuss teachers made over holidays; out would come the craft paper and the weird shaped stencils—eggs for Easter, turkeys for Thanksgiving—and everyone was supposed to be excited and happy and all that shit.

None of those days was any different, for me, than any other. I knew about Christmas, from TV and movies and shop displays, but I kind of figured all the piled up gifts were symbolic, or make believe like everything else on screen. There weren't any talking horses in real life, after all.

But then you get to the age where kids are showing off their gifts—Christmas or birthday—and even in the neighborhoods we lived in, most kids would at least get candy or a new doll or something.

One time, Mrs. C. actually said I could go to their place for Thanksgiving, but she added that she understood if I wanted to be at home, since it was a time for family. And so I stayed away. Too embarrassed to tell her that Stella had gone on a week-long trip with some high roller. I ate cereal and watched TV and told myself it was all crap anyhow.

Birthdays though, they were harder to forget about. Can't get more personal than a celebration especially for _you_. I still didn't quite get what I was missing, until I saw the effort that went into giving someone a special day at the Curtis house. Specifically Ponyboy, since I was officially invited before, during and after his 'party' and got to help blow up balloons and eat cake, and even cleaning up was kind of fun with Pony's dad trying to snaffle one last bite of everything, while Mrs. C was trying to stow the leftovers.

Pony turning eleven, and twelve, I was there for. Thirteen I missed, I don't know what he told his mom, if anything. Maybe she'd already seen we were pulling apart, not hanging out together any more, although part of me hoped she hadn't worked out what I was filling my time with instead. So much had happened since then. This year Pony would be turning fourteen without one of her cakes, without her fussing over the snacks and the decorations. But maybe not without me. We were talking again, there was at least that.

When that Monday after Pony tied one on came around, and my suspension was over and I had nothing better to do, I went back to school. And yeah, I was nervous, because I figured Darry would've been in Ponyboy's ear about me, and how I was to blame for everything that happened. Maybe Pony himself would blame me, even though I didn't see why him having a drink was any different to any other guy around—and I was hardly responsible for the alcohol consumption of the whole freaking North side.

Math was the only class I shared with Ponyboy, because he'd convinced himself he wasn't so good at it, so he sat in with the mere mortals. I hesitated in the doorway. He glanced up, then tore a page out of his notebook like usual, leaning across to put it, with a spare pencil, on my desk. The only thing I liked about using 'Coleman' was that it set me near him in the seating order. One of many things I liked about Ponyboy was that he didn't comment on the fact that I never had my own school supplies.

"You 'kay?" I asked, in a whisper. He looked tired, although I couldn't believe his hangover would've lasted all weekend. "You in deep shit with Darry?"

"Grounded. Forever."

I wanted to laugh, although I didn't feel at all happy. There were times I'd've fucking _killed_ to be confined to that house.

"You?" he asked, one eye on the teacher.

I was fine. No idea why he was asking. "What was the deal with Soda? Why was Darry mad at him?"

Pony shrugged, but he was a shit liar, so I stared him out until he cracked and muttered, "Soda dropped out."

"For real? Man, lucky him."

He shook his head at me and started furiously copying from the chalkboard.

It was the last class of the day, which meant the stampede for the door began with the very first note of the bell. Ponyboy took his time over gathering his books.

"Did you go see Curly?" he blurted, as soon as the teacher left the room.

"Me?" I was confused. I mean, it wouldn't be difficult to find the Shepard house, I had a vague notion of the street it was on, but why would I want to? Maybe Pony wondered how he was doing, because he hadn't seen him around. It wasn't surprising that Curly would use a broken arm as an excuse to ditch school for a while, although I had no idea if the arm he busted was his writing hand, or not.

Pony was reshuffling the order of the books in front of him. "I was just wondering. He was a lot of fun, Friday night. I mean, before..."

"I guess."

For some reason, my lack of enthusiasm made him perk up, as we walked out into the hallway. By the time we made the entrance, he was all but bouncing on his toes. He glanced at the clock on the front of the school.

"You wanna go get a Pepsi?" I suggested. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn't order anything else. But he shook his head.

"I gotta head for home. _Grounded_ , remember?" he added, when I looked blank.

"Aw, who's gonna know?"

"Darry's gonna call the house, make sure I'm there."

"Buzzkill."

"Or something," he muttered, darkly. I felt sorry for him, having his big brother on his back. I told him, okay, and started in the other direction. He called my name.

"Uh, you could come over...I mean, as long as you're gone before Darry finishes work. I mean, I ain't supposed to have _anyone_ over, while I'm grounded, not that _you_ especially haveta to be gone..." came at me in a rush.

I smiled. Told him I had places to be. Told him I'd see him the next day. And then, after his face fell, changed my mind and told myself I could damn well face up to my fears. It would be easier to be inside the house with only Ponyboy. It would just be like everyone else in the family had places to be. Places that didn't include the cemetery.

He bounced along next to me, yakking about something and nothing. Mostly about Sodapop and the gas station and how he'd presented Darry with his first week's pay, before he admitted he'd dropped out.

I thought that was a smart move, and said so. Pony shrugged.

"I guess. I wish he didn't do it though. "

"It ain't like he's hanging around on street corners all day. An' at least he's working at the DX, not holding it up!" I wondered what kind of money pumping gas made. More than waitressing, which was the only career I could think of, or that I stood any chance of doing, before or after graduation. I'd be useless anywhere near a cash register; I was barely passing Math, even with Pony's notebook angled towards me. But anyone could carry plates, right?

"...not what Mom wanted."

I snapped back to what Pony was mumbling. But I didn't comment.

Going in the back door was just as difficult as approaching the front porch had been. I'd been ready for the house to smack me in the face with its differences. It seemed wrong that it felt and looked the same. Maybe a little messier, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in the time it took Mrs. C. to sing along with a couple of tunes on the radio, while she picked up, flicking at dust as she whisked past the shelves and cabinets.

Pepsi from the ice box. Books flung in the corner. TV flicked on. I watched Pony act like the world was normal and I did a good job of doing the same. Only, when the phone rang, I jumped as he flew at the TV, turning the sound right down before picking up the call.

"Yeah...Well, I'm here. No...Yes. Some Math and studying for a History test...Yeah. _Yes_. I _said_ , I will." He hung up without saying goodbye and scowled at the phone. Then he picked up the handset again and slammed it back down really hard.

"I think maybe you got cut off there." I smirked. Pony smiled sheepishly.

"He never lets up."

I told him I was sorry. About the booze. And him getting in trouble for it.

"I don't care what Darry says," he bluffed, going back to turn up the TV. "But I ain't doing that again, no way. I felt awful in the morning. It's not worth it."

I nodded, like I agreed with him. Then excused myself to the bathroom.

There I found the kind of changes I'd expected; wet towels balled up on the floor, hair oil spilled across the basin. More of a funky boy smell coming from the laundry basket than would have built up before.

After I washed my hands and gingerly used the driest towel, I paused in front of the mirrored cabinet for a second. It had the quietest click as it opened, but I held my breath, expecting a yell demanding to know what I was doing. The TV carried on in the background.

Stella had a hundred and one different bottles and containers in our bathroom. Scents and lotions and powder puffs. They crowded a whole set of shelves. Not one smelled like the 'Somewhere' that still sat in the cabinet in front of me. On the top shelf, the one 'girly' island in the masculine sea of pomade, muscle rub and shaving kit; cotton balls, cold cream and the pink Avon tin. I took off the cap and sniffed the talc. Then I took a sheet of toilet paper and shook a little of the powder in the center, folding it up, over and over, until it was a small, careful square that I stuffed in my pocket.

I knew I put the talc back exactly so, because there was a ring in the dust where it fitted; no boy ever thought to dust _inside_ anywhere, I figured. But they would have noticed the tin going missing. Probably. Someone was at least using the stuff on the bottom shelf. Mr. C's shelf. There wasn't any dust around the white bottle with the sailing ship on it. _Old Spice._

It hit me like a freight train, why Darry had smelled so much nicer than Curly, the other night.

I returned to the front room at a run. "I gotta split," I blurted, snatching up my purse and clawing out a weed.

Pony blinked at me. "You didn't finish your drink." He took the stick I offered, but screwed up his face apologetically. "Wait up. I'll haveta go outside anyhow."

"What're you talking about?" I followed him to the back steps and sat next to him.

"Darry don't like smoking in the house."

"God, where's he get off? Your dad used to smoke in the house, didn't he?— _sorry_ , I mean…" I tried to bite the words back as Pony's eyes went kind of shiny and he sucked hard on the weed, ducking his face down. I was pleased to be distracted by a sharp whistle, and looking across the yard, I saw Two-Bit sauntering past Soda's latest junker.

"Hey, kiddos, how's it hanging?" He beckoned to Pony to let him have a drag of his smoke and Pony handed it over reluctantly. For good reason; it wasn't returned. Two-Bit grinned at us. "Should I be buying a new suit?" He chortled when we didn't understand, and nodded sideways at the steps. "In some parts of the world, sharing a step means you're engaged, didn'tcha know...?"

I flipped him the bird and we laughed. But Pony's face took on the color of a tomato and he leaped to his feet.

"What're you doin' here anyway?" he demanded. "Did Darry tell you to check up on me?"

"Oho. Why'd ya need checking up on, kid? What'd you do?" Two-Bit's eyes lit up and it was way too late for Pony's muttered 'nothing' to be believable.

"Sap," I hissed at him, stubbing out my weed. "Look," I told Two-Bit as I headed away from the steps. "Darry's on his case, okay. He don't need no particular reason. An' he don't need no extra ammo from you. So, you never saw me, right?"

Two-Bit's brain must have gone into overdrive because even though I waved 'goodbye' at both of them, he loped after me as I cut across to Trenton Avenue and headed south. Even walking in the gutter he was still head and shoulders taller than me.

"Why're you supposed to be invisible?" he asked.

"Why do you need to know everything about everybody?" I countered.

"Knowledge is power, kid."

"Or you ain't but a gossip."

"Ouch!" He pretended to be stung.

With a sigh that came out more dramatic than I intended, I told him why Darry was pissed with me and that Pony wasn't supposed to have me over to the house while he was grounded. "So don't make it worse for him, okay? ... _What_?" I reacted to his face, which was telling me loud and clear I was in the wrong. "You think it's my fault too? You fucking hypocrite, you bring booze around him more'n anyone!"

"It ain't that—"

I cut across him: "Pony ain't a baby!"

"In some things he is." Two-Bit sounded uncharacteristically thoughtful. Then he kind of shook himself. "You can't blame Darry for looking out for him. Pony's the _kid_ brother, y'dig?"

"So what'd ya think he is to me?" I rolled my eyes. "Why'd ya think I'm trying to keep him out of deeper shit, now?"

Two-Bit came to a halt. He let out a short bark of a laugh. "Oh. Cool," he said. Which was weird, since I hadn't said anything that required any kind of judgement.

This time, as I walked on, he didn't follow, although by coincidence I saw him again later that night. Across the room at Buck Merrill's place. I'd been there enough times that my age—or lack of it—no longer freaked out the lanky cowboy. He was kidding himself if he thought I was the youngest chick there, anyhow. As for me, I liked that the place ran to no timetable, licensing or otherwise. It was useful to have an afterhours bolthole.

And no, I wasn't there with Dallas, who had another few days to run on his latest sentence. But then, neither was Sylvia Becker. I saw her flirting with some guy wearing a flashy buckle. And since she _never_ came in the place even when she and Dally were tight as a couple, I figured her new guy rode in one of Dallas's events and she had a point to make.

But I didn't spend too long considering Sylvia's motives, because the guy I was with was making his own intentions pretty clear.

* * *

 **Sorry, I don't know why this took so long. But I promise I'm incapable of leaving a story hanging, unfinished. I will always keep going, even if I'm not updating quite as regularly as I used to. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Sick. That's how I felt. Sick to my stomach.

Not something I was used to. I'd been loaded plenty of times, but hardly ever to the point of hurling. Whether that was because I'd eased into the whole thing for years, sneaking mouthfuls of Stella's gin and vodka—by emptying the glasses after one of her sessions, when I was doing the dishes—before I got into serious drinking, or because I was just lucky enough to have a cast iron stomach, I didn't know. Probably the second one, seeing as how at this one party there was some wild shit being smoked that had kids puking in corners before midnight. Not me, I only had a killer headache the next morning.

Even the usual kind of kid illnesses mostly passed me by. Just as well. Stella wasn't any kind of nurse.

Now though, as she fixed her eyes on me, I was in real danger of losing my breakfast.

"The hell kind of little punks you been hanging out with?" she demanded.

I swallowed.

Her question was more important than she knew. And I wished, I really, truly wished there was a different answer.

Up until recently, it would have been different, that was the thing that really stung.

It quickly became a kind of game, hanging out with Pony. Some days he had track practice or mysterious library shit he needed to take care of. But when I did go over to the house, half the fun was timing it perfectly so I split right before Darry rocked up, even when Pony wasn't grounded any more. Fridays were trickiest, because depending on the job, sometimes Darry's work crew got to finish early for the weekend. And once or twice the weather nearly caught us out, closing down the site because of wind or rain.

We didn't always have the house to ourselves. Johnny was around quite often, sometimes with Two-Bit, since they buddied up on the way back from school. Not so much for Two-Bit's benefit, although nobody could blame Johnny for steering clear of harm's way; he'd been worked over pretty good, back in the Spring.

Soda picked up various shifts, and was in and out of the house at different times, so it was no secret to him that I was on the scene again. He was cool, like always. More than his asshole of a buddy, who had taken to staring at me like I was a specimen in a frigging jar. But even Steve Randle kept his mouth shut around the biggest Curtis, to my surprise, because I listened to a hellava lot of bitching from Ponyboy about Darry's rules and whatever, but my name didn't seem to be on the list of restrictions.

Still, I made it almost all the way to the end of the summer semester before I came face to face with Darry again. At which point I discovered maybe Pony was better at hiding stuff than I'd thought.

We were way late home from school that day. I'd waited behind for Pony, seemed like the least I could do. But he insisted I should still come to the house, since Soda was flush from a customer's big tip and springing for pizza. Only, when we rounded the corner and he saw the truck, he hesitated.

"Shit. I thought Darry was working late."

I offered to split but Pony shook his head. "Nah, it's not about you. It's just that I never told him about the detentions." Well, to be completely honest, that _was_ about me, but I was under the spell of the house whenever it was right in front of me and I didn't take any persuading to follow Pony inside.

Despite the radio blaring, Two-Bit was stretched out on the couch, arms behind his head, eyes closed. He didn't stir when Darry walked out of the kitchen and regarded the two of us.

"I told Lainey she could eat with us," Pony said, real casual.

"That right? I assume you didn't figure on me being here," said Darry, folding his arms. "The school called, by the way. Apparently you got something for me to sign? Unless you forged it already..."

Pony kind of shrunk in on himself. "Aw, it was no big deal." And it really wasn't. I could hardly believe the school had bothered to call about it.

"Am I not welcome here anymore?" I demanded, royally pissed about the way Darry could make Pony feel bad.

Darry looked at me levelly. "Honestly, Lainey? I ain't thrilled about Pony getting a detention because of _your_ behavior. We can do without him getting into trouble at school."

"Yeah, I get that." Pony had told me they were still being checked up on. I defended myself anyhow. "But I never asked him to hit that little prick!" Besides, it was more of a shove than anything, that's why he only got a couple of detentions.

Before Darry could reply, Sodapop and Steve arrived with pizza, waking up Two-Bit in the process of slinging the boxes onto the coffee table, both of 'em yammering away as they dived in, until they realized their noise had punched a hole in some kind of atmosphere and their eyes flicked between all of us.

"S'up?" Soda asked, cramming a slice of pizza in his mouth. "C'mon, Pony, Lainey, eat!"

"I'm just headin'." I made for the door.

"Darry don't want her around," Pony blurted.

"What I _don't want_ is you in detention. And don't think we're finished talking about that." Darry sighed. "But, Lainey, stay for the pizza."

"Yeah, Lainey, stay," Soda said firmly, making a question face at Darry, like he didn't understand him.

"What's going on?" Two-Bit asked, swinging his legs around and sitting up.

"I'm a bad influence," I muttered, lacing the comment with acid. He grinned in delight.

"Ooh, come 'bad influence' me, sweetie. And pass me up some pepperoni while you're at it." Two-Bit patted the couch until I sat down.

"Is this it? Or should we save some for Johnny and Dally?" Pony asked, his embarrassment giving way to hunger as he started chewing.

Steve and Soda started up talking at the same time again: "Glory! That's what we were sayin' as we came in!" "Dally got pulled in again—" "He had some gear on him. Reckon he'll get a long stretch this time."

Two-Bit cussed up the place and even Darry had something to say about Dallas being inside again.

"Sylvia know?" Two-Bit asked when he ran out of cussing.

Steve snorted. "Why? You gonna look the no-good, ratty broad up?" The words were for Two-Bit, but his stare was leveled at me.

"Dallas know you talk about his girlfriend like that?" I asked sweetly. He scowled, but there was a string of cheese caught on his chin which spoiled the effect, so I awarded myself the point.

Soda, having only heard Darry's comment on the previous subject, asked Pony why he'd been in detention.

Either the pizza, or Darry caving about my being there, had buoyed Pony up again because he shrugged one shoulder, carefully cool. "Nothing major. This kid was saying some not nice stuff 'bout Lainey and I put him on his ass, is all."

As Two-Bit riffed on 'greasers in shining armor', I caught the look that went between the two older brothers, but I couldn't be sure what they were communicating, other than the fact that Soda seemed more amused about it than Darry.

Later, I realized there wasn't that much difference between Steve's opinion of Sylvia—which hadn't provoked a reaction, other than a laugh, from any of the other guys—and what the kid at school had called me. Obviously Ponyboy was a nicer person than Steve, but nobody else had seemed surprised by the fact that some random guy had something to say about me, either.

At the time though I was only hacked by Darry's disapproval and despite that, the evening was enjoyable. Fun even, once Soda got to listing the way more outrageous things that he'd had detentions for, so Pony still came out as the better behaved. If Stella had quizzed me on who I was hanging around with, right after that pizza night, I'd have said 'nice guys' and it would have been true. I'd have said Ponyboy Curtis was probably my best friend and he was about as un-hoodlike as they came; no obvious drinking, or drugs...Maybe not the straight A student he'd been before he lost his folks, but for fuck's sake, _he lost his folks_.

Only.

Summer vacation always seems like it's going to last forever and then it spirals away from you. With no school to get up for, what makes a Tuesday night any different than a Saturday night? What keeps anyone from partying as hard as they like, whenever they like?

I hated school, plain and simple, so it made no sense to think that I missed the structure of the days, that I was left a little lost without the three o'clock rendezvous at the front of the building and the chance of an invitation over to the Curtis house.

Pony was picking up a few odd jobs around the neighborhood; lawn cutting, garage clearing, that kind of thing. Mostly from people who'd known his parents, I suspected, 'cause it wasn't like anyone usually wasted their spare cash paying for random chores they could do for themselves. Stella occasionally employed gardeners and plumbers and the like, but then our house was untypical in so many ways and it wasn't necessarily the same kind of payment system.

So, I should have been able to see more of Pony over the summer but it didn't work out that way. Sometimes I walked down his street on the way back from somewhere and saw him on the back steps, smoking, and we caught up. One time— _the_ time. The time that mattered—it was full dark and I only spotted the glow of the weed, before angling my path over to him.

He seemed subdued but I was a little high from wherever I'd been and I thought maybe we were just out of sync.

"You wanna do something tomorrow?" I asked him. "Not in the morning, but later?" I was thinking we could watch some TV, or go to a movie. Make the most of the days left before school started up. I was hoping we'd be together at Will Rogers, in the same homeroom or something. Pony shrugged. The kind of shrug that says 'probably not'.

"You busy?" I snatched his weed and took a drag. "You working?"

Ponyboy shook his head and cast a quick look over his shoulder to the kitchen. The light was off. I didn't know if his brothers were home. "So," he said, "someone told me something kind of freaky."

"Like what?"

"About you. You and Dallas."

"What 'me and Dallas'?" I offered his smoke back, but he waved it away.

"He said you _went_ with Dallas."

"What, all the way over in the reformatory?" I thought that, plus his dancing around the phrasing, was funny, but lost the grin when I saw Pony's serious expression.

"Lainey. You ain't his girlfriend."

"Aw, you don't get it."

He shook his head sadly. "What about that other boy? The one I saw you with in the park?" _What?_ Who did he see me with and when? I racked my brain, but ended up going for a generic:

"What about him?"

"Are you _his_ girlfriend?"

"Jesus, Pony. Don't be such a baby." I ground out the weed on the side of the steps.

He swallowed. "You don't seem bothered that someone would say that about you."

"You think I ain't used to people talking about me?"

"I think you seemed happy when I tackled Billy Meyer and got detention for it. Don't you wanna know if I clocked the person who told me about Dallas?" No, I really didn't. Because I could already see the difference. He hadn't believed Billy Meyer. That was the difference. That and the way Pony was trying real hard _not_ to look at me.

The hurt was unexpected. I'd never noticed how he used to look at me, until that moment when he stopped.

He took a deep breath. "I just don't think—"

"Pony, can you maybe stop thinking for a goddamn second? Or thinking 'bout me, at least. It ain't none of your fuckin' business who I see or don't see." I spat the words at him, already backing up, backing away. "You don't know what you're fucking talking about. Try again in a year, when your balls have dropped, okay? Maybe you'll get it then."

His eyes widened. Score one to me. But his return shot was a destroyer. "Mom always said cussing didn't sit right in a lady's mouth."

"And?" I demanded. "The fuck does that have to do with me? Ain't that the point? I sure don't see no ladies here. A fairy, maybe, but that's all." I swept him with an insulting top-to-toe stare.

"Yeah?" He stood up and towered over me from the steps. "So don't bother hanging around here no more, then! Go hang out with that moosehead Doug Matheson, if you like him so much!"

Oh. Doug Matheson. That's who he'd seen. We'd had a bit of a blast, the previous week. Not in the local park though, the one down towards the river. God knew what Pony had been doing there, to see me.

And maybe I was loaded enough that I'd been talking shit, but Pony was stone cold sober and he sounded like he meant what he said, for real.

"Well, here's the thing, Pony _boy_ ," I launched the words at him as I made my exit. "Doug Matheson may be a moosehead, but at least he ain't a whiny, fourteen year old moosehead."

I never spoke to Doug Matheson again.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay. I've been busy, and then I lost more than half of this in a random 'Don't save changes' moment of madness! I wish my computer wouldn't believe me when I do that... On the bright side, the next chapter is almost done. :)**


	7. Chapter 7

When high school started, I refused to let myself look for Pony. It was tough enough, navigating the corridors and the hidden corners.

It was like being parachuted into enemy territory, there were so many Socs. Or at least, it seemed that way, because the kids in the middle looked more like 'them' than us—there were way more sweater/ kilt combos than pushing-the-rulebook minis, and lots of the guys walked around in letter jackets. No greaser ever bothered to make a high school team. I didn't count Darry Curtis; in that respect he'd never thought of himself as a greaser, I was damn sure. I remembered some of the dicks he used to hang out with, the football players who had swanky wheels the minute they got their license. The ones who thought it was fucking hilarious to taunt a twelve year old girl with her mother's rep.

Well, I'd made sure Socs and greasers alike had my own rep to chew on, now, hadn't I?

I wasn't stupid, as far as the authorities at school went. For the first few days I'd toned down my makeup and I wore a skirt that was as near to regulation length as dammit. But it made no difference. Every single kid there might as well have been toting a sign.

The scariest thing was, the older Socs were just as happy to start something as the greasers. In middle school, an attitudey twelve or thirteen year old can easily put down a Socy kid in the grade above; greasers mature earlier. In high school, they were all jostling for position and not afraid to fight for it.

"Hey, doll, you new? Wanna get acquainted under the bleachers?" was the most polite greeting I got, walking the hallways.

Even the bathrooms were marked out, as I discovered, by going into one to be met with a cloud of Lasting Hold and several snobby sneers from the Country Club set. On the next floor, the 'Girls' room' sign was crooked and inside there were two girls smoking and one dabbing Pan-Cake on her neck—to disguise a hickey, I assumed—while a pretty blonde chick was rolling over her waistband to make her skirt shorter.

She twisted around, to try and see if it was crooked.

"Who's gonna care?" replied her friend, when she was asked for her opinion. "You ain't gonna see Soda 'til after school." Evie stubbed out her weed on the window sill and fluffed her hair a little in the mirror.

I booked it. I didn't know if Sylvia, or anyone, had the same information that Pony had come by and I didn't want to run into her or her friends until I was sure. On the one hand, I figured if she was after my blood she'd have tracked me down over the summer. But possibly, whoever was spreading the rumor—although could I call it that, when it was true?—was waiting for school to start, to get the biggest audience.

The whole damn place felt like a maze, dotted with land mines.

And I shared not a single class with Ponyboy.

I saw him, once or twice, across the parking lot, lunchtimes, mostly with kids I didn't know, although a couple of times Curly was with him, or one of the older guys. And then I heard his name mentioned. Unfortunately, somewhere with witnesses.

Two weeks into the semester.

I stared at the patch of peeling paint just to the left of the principal's ear and wondered if that really was a record for a girl to be suspended for fighting, or if he was trying to scare me, since sitting opposite him in his crappy little office wasn't working. 'Fighting' didn't even come into it. One slap didn't count as a fight. Although it was enough to send the little bitch in the yellow sweater and her friend into hysterics. Still, I bet she thought twice about calling certain people a hood from then on. Stupid little cow, wouldn't know a real live hood if one up and spat in her face.

As the lecture droned on, I considered whether I could get some guy who really deserved the J.D. title to give her a fright. That would be a blast. The principal told me to stop smirking.

I walked home the long way, putting off having to face Stella, who had answered the phone in such a pissed mood that I'd been able to hear her tone right across the desk, even before she heard about the 'fight'. Mr Setterfield had even looked a little guilty that he was dismissing me to her tender care. I figured he'd be over it, by the time my suspension was up and even if he wasn't, the bruises would be gone by then, so what would be the point in worrying?

Down by the railway bridge, I recognized the silhouetted figure slouching towards me, hands deep in his jacket pockets.

Johnny frowned as he came closer and saw it was me. "Am I late?"

"For what? Didn't know we had a date." I bit back a smile as he gulped and studied his toes real careful-like.

"No! I didn't mean...I meant, uh, I was gonna meet Pony after school."

Ah. I told him school wasn't out yet.

"You ditching too?" he asked.

To tell the truth, I couldn't remember seeing him around one time, since I'd been at Will Rogers. Even though I'd been avoiding Pony, I'd still caught glimpses of him after all, and Two-Bit and Steve Randle were _loud_ in the hallways, a person'd have to be deaf and blind not to know they went there. I guessed Johnny had ditching down to a fine art.

"Nah," I told him, playing it cool. "Got me the rest of the week as a personal vacation...I'm suspended," I elaborated, when he looked blank.

He fumbled in his pocket and offered me a weed, which I declined. "Jeez."

"'S'okay," I told him. "Ain't like my record wasn't already looking like Swiss cheese. I'll see ya 'round, yeah?" As I set off walking, a pickup crawled past, the driver whistling at me as he hung out the window.

"Lainey?"

I span around, surprised by Johnny's call.

"You want me to walk you home?" He was bouncing a closed switch in his palm. I never even knew he packed a blade.

I told him no thanks. "I might go get a Coke or something." Something that would last several hours, so I could sneak in once Stella was busy.

"You sure?" His hand went to his jeans, tucking the knife away, but he hesitated. "You oughta watch where you're walking."

I smiled. "Don't sweat it. Anyhow, didn't you just say you had somewhere to be?"

 **xxXxx**

So, the Tastee Freez was out of the question, until I knew if Sylvia was after me or not. Most of the girls in her crowd hung out there, some of them even waitressed after school, so the boss probably knew what time the last class finished and I didn't want any nosy questions.

Buck Merrill's was always an option, but at this time of day, I might be the only person under thirty awake in the place. And I didn't want to hang with any sweaty horse traders, or Buck's number-running friends.

What I needed was somewhere to chill where no one would care whether I oughta be in school or not, plus a good likelihood of someone standing me a Coke and maybe even something to eat.

The Dingo it was, then.

Mid-afternoon was a 'cat nap in the car' kind of time—before all the strutting and squaring up of the evening kicked in—and there were a couple of guys doing just that, doors propped open for the breeze, feet up on dashboards. Some younger guys were draped on one of the picnic tables.

As I approached the front door, a couple of girls in pedal pushers came out. I didn't recognize them and they didn't acknowledge me. Someone, however, called me by name and said hi.

Curly Shepard was sitting on the picnic table, nursing a Pepsi and interfering in the card game that the guys next to him were trying to play. One of the girls draped herself over the kid on the far side of the table, distracting him fairly effectively, and his opponent threw his cards down in disgust, climbed to his feet and made for one of the nearby cars, following the other chick.

A couple of other engines had roared up on the other side of the lot. The place was starting to fill up.

I remembered Curly's question, from the evening Pony had gotten blitzed, when I'd met them here, how he'd assumed I'd been fighting in the girls' locker room. I made myself a promise not to tell him why I was wandering around in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

As it turned out, it wasn't a problem, because he was only interested in talking about himself. Boasting, more like.

"I know a liquor store that's gonna be easy as shit to knock over."

"That right?" I was already bored by the whole idea. I wanted a drink and he was conspicuously _not_ offering. Curly was too dumb to actually pull off anything like a hold up. In fact he was incredibly dumb, to the point—

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You been spreading bull about me?" The girl behind the table pricked up her ears, I noticed.

Curly blinked in surprise. "Like what?"

"Like stuff that'll get your ass kicked."

"By who?"

"By whoever you were running your mouth about."

"What? That don't make no sense. You said it was about you." He wasn't getting anywhere with the puzzle. Maybe he really didn't know what I was talking about.

"Yeah, me an' _someone else_ , dumb ass. Did you spread anything about me and _someone else_?"

Curly scratched under his armpit. "How am I supposed to keep track? Ain't like you don't put it about plenty." He smirked, like something had just occurred to him. "Maybe I oughta get in line, huh?"

I could feel my fist clench, all on its own, as the rage started to rise. I sneered, "You got no chance, Baby Shepard. I'd bang your brother right here in this lot, before I'd let you touch me."

"Works for me," said a low and lazy voice behind me. Curly sniggered in delight. The girl and the guy behind him were both staring now.

As I turned around, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole, I took in not much more than the rolled sleeves of his T shirt and the scar on his face.

Tim Shepard smiled widely but not nicely. "I mean, you might wanna buy me a drink first, doll. Wouldn't want ya to think I was easy, or nothin'."

I clamped my lip between my teeth and backed up, away from them all. Tim reached out and took a swig of Curly's drink, belching theatrically in appreciation. I suddenly remembered when I'd been thinking about pissing Darry off, practically daring myself to hunt down the leader of the Shepard gang. It didn't seem so funny now. I turned, heading for the street.

"What's the rush, baby?" A hand closed on my arm before I made the sidewalk. One of the Brumly crew. The one who liked what he liked. I tried to pull away, without success. It hadn't done me any good the time he drove me out to the lake, either. He laughed at me when I told him to let go.

"How about we go for a drive." It wasn't a question.

"Whoa, now." This time the voice was still low, but not so lazy. "We got a problem?" Tim Shepard rolled his neck, like it was stiff. "Only she don't look like she wants to go for a drive."

The Brumly guy dropped his grip on me, shooting his eyes from one side of the lot to the other. "No problem, man. Her an' me, we're old friends."

"Well, that might make sense, only—" Tim motioned with his finger for me to step aside "—she don't live in Brumly." Curly and the other guys had moved up behind him, and the chicks too, which surprised me until one grabbed my elbow and they steered me back to the table.

"What the fuck?" I hissed at the one holding onto me.

She grinned and cracked her gum. "Don't get your panties in a twist. Tim's just cleaning house. That prick keeps parking up in our spot."

I watched as the Brumly car reversed, tires spitting gravel. The other guys—the _Shepard gang_ —didn't move until it was gunning away down the street. Then they laughed and did a little back slapping and shoving and all that usual idiotic guy shit.

As he walked up to me, Tim almost smiled. I tensed, but he went right on past and slung an arm around the taller girl, the one who'd spoken to me, then shoved a couple of bills in Curly's hand and told him to fetch some sodas.

The other couple sat back down at the table, as the guy who'd abandoned the card game earlier scooped up the scattered cards. He shuffled them from one hand to the other and grinned at me.

"You wanna play with us, babe?"

 **xxXxx**

As Stella's stare wore me down, I frantically tried to do the Math. Exactly how long was it since I'd spoken with Ponyboy?

When the knock had come at the front door, it had made me jump. Nobody knocked on our front door in the morning. Nights were different. I was real little when I learned that visitors at night meant _keep out of the way_. But in the day, Stella was usually either sleeping or not home, and no one ever called for me.

For once though Stella was up for breakfast. Not dressed, that would have been a frigging miracle, but she made it to the door before me.

"Well, well...Hello, darlin'." I heard her purr. "What can I do for you?"

"Is Lainey here?" I jumped out of my skin for the second time, hearing Sodapop's voice. Stella was obviously equally surprised. She stared from him to me. I about died at the sight of her, in a flimsy robe that wasn't pulled all the way across her front. He was looking right past her though and, for a wonder, she retreated.

"Lainey?" Soda looked awful, like he hadn't slept. "Lainey, have you seen Pony?"

Hardly. Between being out of school and spending all my time with Wes and the rest of the gang, I'd barely been on home turf at all. Plus, had Pony not told him that we'd fallen out? It didn't seem like the time to try and explain it all. So I just said, "No."

His face fell."He and Johnny took off...something real bad happened last night."

Of course I asked what and he babbled about 'fights' and 'Socs' and a 'kid, dead in the park', but his attention was already gone, he was trying to decide where to go next. I blinked. Hard.

"Yeah, but... _Pony_? And Johnny wouldn't—" my objection melted into nothing on my tongue as the picture of him bouncing the switchblade filled my mind.

Jumped.

Knifed.

Stabbed.

Dead.

"I could ask Curly," I said, hearing my tone as flat, weird.

Soda grimaced. "Tried him already. We just gotta find Pony and Johnny before the cops do." He started backing down to the street. "I gotta keep looking. Tell us if you see him, huh? Tell him he can come home, tell him Darry's sorry and he ain't mad." He was already running, as I called out to ask what exactly Darry was sorry for.

I shut the door. Turning, I faced Stella leaning on the kitchen doorpost with a glass in her hand. It could have been water, but I knew it wasn't. She narrowed her eyes at me.

 _"The hell kind of little punks you been hanging out with?"_


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you guest reviewers. :) Sorry, everyone that this is taking me so long to update. But I promise - again - that I will not leave it unfinished!**

* * *

It seemed like there were cops on every corner of every street. That'd be right – where the hell were they when Johnny got jumped? They had fuck all interest in the North side when it was a greaser getting worked over, but when a Soc went down...But then...

 _Dead_.

Even being beaten up as bad as Johnny had been wasn't the same as that.

I don't know if I'd been holding onto the idea that Soda must've got the story wrong, but I knew now that the whole world was buzzing with the news. Half the gossipers I'd passed as I walked had Pony and Johnny already in the chair.

Still, I stuck out my chin as I went past the cruiser at the end of Tim's street, mentally flipping off the bored looking cop inside. I remembered thinking about whether I could even find this street, let alone the Shepard house, after Curly busted his arm and Pony was asking me about him. It was kind of unreal that I now knew the house well enough to know that the kitchen door stuck, unless you kicked it in the right place.

That first day, I'd thought Wes was kidding when he invited me to hang out. Not that I knew who he was then; I didn't know who any of them were, except the two Shepard brothers and since I was hacked at Curly and afraid of Tim, I felt way out of my depth. But the girls smiled and the guy with the deck of cards smiled and I had no real reason not to smile back.

By the time all the introductions had been made and I had a drink in front of me, I was wishing it wasn't a weekday afternoon. At the very least I was wishing the place would fill up a bit quicker, so people could see me with the Shepard gang. _Me_ , hanging out with the Shepard gang. By then the fact that I was afraid of Tim didn't seem as important as the fact that the guy from Brumly had been afraid of him. See, there were greasers and then there were _greasers_. Every boy I'd ever spoken more than two words to was a greaser. Obviously. But none of them was anything significant in any gang hierarchy, not even the asshole from Brumly. And none of the girls from school, who'd invited me to parties as bait, was anyone significant either.

These girls—Lana and Mandy—were older and cooler and...something I couldn't put my finger on, but that I instantly wanted to be, too.

Lana was definitely with Tim. Had to be, the way he casually held onto her and the way she neither objected, nor stopped him. But she watched Wes carefully, as he explained the rules of the game to me and she told me my nails were nice, as I picked up the cards.

I gulped. Her own nails were redder than red, while mine were longish but natural. School rule-compliant natural. If she asked me why they weren't painted, I thought I might die of embarrassment.

"You oughta come by sometime," she said. "I got a new polish would look far out on you."

Wes smirked to himself just a little and winked at her, but at the time I was too nervous to imagine his reaction had anything to do with me. And later, when they all declared they were bored with the scene at The Dingo, I was confused again because Lana told Wes she'd see him 'at home' and asked if I wanted to go with her, to get that manicure.

Now, as I reached the Shepard house and heard the piercing whistle from across the street, I knew exactly where I was headed when I changed direction.

"Hey, babe, you 'kay? You givin' me the cold shoulder 'cause last night was a bust?" Wes grinned at me from the porch floor, where he had what looked like a radio spread out in pieces between his legs.

I told him no, I would've come over, but I was looking for Curly first.

"Only Tim's around an' he's here." He jerked a thumb at the open front door.

Lana and Wes lived with their grandmother, had done for most of their lives, which meant their house had a freaky combination of old lady furniture and hip decoration. They were cousins, which explained why they acted like siblings but looked nothing alike, I guessed. Simple geography—growing up in sight of one another—was probably the main reason that Wes was Tim's second in command, and Lana his girl.

In contrast to Wes's greeting, when Tim came out to investigate the sound of our voices, he only grunted at me. He had a hellava black eye. It was swollen enough to make it seem like he was permanently winking. I'd never seen an organized fight before. At practically every party I'd ever been to there was some kind of dispute, some shoving and name calling, but two perfectly calm guys facing off deliberately? That had been a first for me.

I wondered how bad off Dallas was this morning.

"Whadda ya want, doll?" Tim walked past me, sending a stream of smoke towards the cop car down the block as he curled his lip in that direction.

"I came to see if Curly knows where Ponyboy went." I knew what Soda had said, but I also knew that Curly could lie through his teeth.

"Yeah. Good luck with that," Tim growled. "Stupid little asswipe got himself hauled in."

"What? When? Soda said he spoke to him." It'd been breakfast time when Soda came around my house, after which I'd had Stella to deal with, after which I'd cleaned myself up, gotten out and headed here. It was barely lunchtime.

"Curtis? He was lucky I didn't knock him into fucking next week, coming round here at the crack of fucking dawn."

I looked at Wes, hoping for more details without I had to question Tim again. He shrugged, losing his grin as he explained: "Turns out Curly had a humdinger of an alibi for what went down in the park. They got him identified 'cross town, breaking into some liquor store at the time. Cops picked him up about an hour ago." He grimaced at Tim's back and gave me a 'hand-across-the-throat' signal, which I took to mean 'don't talk to Tim about it no more'.

"You friendly with the Curtis kid?" Tim turned around and scrutinized me. I figured he was putting together the fact that Curly knew me from school, where he was Pony's buddy. I nodded.

"I don't think he... I mean, it must've been..." My non-thoughts on the whole business wobbled out of my mouth. It was still easier than explaining that I didn't know if Pony and I were friends any more.

"Curly reckoned he was tuff enough. One less Soc bastard in the world, seems like a good result to me." An icy smile was his final verdict.

"Does anyone know where Pony and Johnny went? Where they're hiding?" I looked between the two of them, but they both shook their heads.

I wished I had better news, but I still felt like I needed to report it.

 **xxXxx**

The Curtis place was never that different from any other house on the street, on the block, in the neighborhood. Except to me, it was. But that day, as I went up the front walk, it looked in need of a coat of paint. A new roof. New doors, windows. It looked like all the life had gone out of it.

There's this old cartoon about some little critter—I guess it's a mole, ain't they the blind ones?—and he sees this fairy castle every day. Only one day he finds some eyeglasses and he realizes that what he's been looking at for so long ain't really nothing but a whole heap of junk. Rusty cans and broken bottles catching the light. He ditches the specs, 'cause he'd rather live in a world with a fairy castle.

I wanted my fairy castle back.

That weird Sunday quietness was suffocating. It was always a dead kind of day and I always hated it; a surprising amount of people get stuck with either church or family stuff, or both. And the lack of shopping opportunities is a downer. It was worse than ever though, as I dragged myself up the steps and opened the front door.

"Hey, sweetie. Any news?" Two-Bit was perched on the arm of the couch, like he was ready to spring up.

I shook my head. "I've asked everywhere I can think of."

"Me too. Just got back here myself." His smile was supposed to be sympathetic, I knew, as his eyes slid over to Soda, slumped at the dining table, more like a shadow than himself.

Steve came in from the kitchen and put a mug of coffee in front of Soda. He looked from me to Two-Bit, raising his eyebrows in a question. When Two-Bit shook his head, Steve's face fell. I guess even he was worried, although he mostly seemed to be bugged by Pony. Maybe it was Soda he was worried for.

"The fuzz been back since I was here?" Two-Bit asked.

Soda shook his head. "Darry's gone out to search again. He's all kinds of sorry, blaming himself, because he hit Pony..."

 _What the hell?_ Another piece of the fairy castle crumbled away.

"He didn't mean to," Soda said, with something desperate on the edge of his tone.

"You can't hit someone without meaning to." My voice came out kind of hollow. I pulled my hand down from my cheek, aware that I was the subject of all their eyes at once. Steve looked away first. I don't know why I remember that.

"You find Dallas?" Soda asked Two-Bit and he got a nod in reply.

"Says he was out of commission all night, after he ditched them at the movies."

"He got into it with Tim," I said, to confirm Two-Bit's report. "They took it down by the tracks. It was 'one on one', but everyone was there, watching. Tim put Dallas on his ass good enough, so he probably went home to bed." This time it wasn't anything like pity in their eyes as they all regarded me in silence. "What? I'm only telling you, Pony wasn't with Dallas when I saw him."

A noise from outside caught my attention. I backed up towards the door. "I'm gonna look down by the rail yard again."

"We've been all over, they ain't there," Two-Bit said, not unkindly. I didn't answer, I just headed out the door.

Darry was climbing down from his truck in the driveway as I got to him.

"You rat bastard!" The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. His own mouth fell open in shock. He looked about as tired and defeated as Soda had, but I could have cared less. "You laid into him? That's why he's gone?"

"Get out of here, Lainey, it's nothing to do with you." It came out hoarse, tired.

"The hell it ain't! Pony's my friend."

"You sure about that?"

 _What?_ I stared, momentarily wrong footed.

"You think him running interference for your reputation makes you a good friend? I could think of other words," Darry spat. "Same as I could think of a few words for you leading him on—"

"I never did that!"

"Fuck's sake, he had the biggest crush on you and you exploited it."

 _What?_

"I couldn't let you stomp on his feelings and I wasn't about to see you leave him in your wake, like you did Winston."

 _Oh_. _God._ I took a step back." _You_ told him? Told Pony about Dallas?"

"Who the hell d'ya think kept Dallas quiet in the first place, Lainey? He was here the morning after he got with you, couldn't wait to share the details. Lucky for you, I was the only one around, or he'd have spilled his guts to the lot of 'em."

Crowding into my head was the way Pony had been so sad and disappointed with me. But also, all the other times before that, when we'd hung out. And the times Johnny had been there, sharing a Pepsi. Or Two-Bit had razzed me, like he did his kid sister. Or Soda had been his usual self. The pizza night. What if they'd known about Dallas? How would they have reacted?

Were all those safe hours at this house bought for me by Darry?

Darry rubbed his face, sighing. "Just go home, Lainey. Or...wherever you're going." He glanced at the street. At the car parked there and the figure behind the wheel. "And don't bring any damn hoods around here again. How'd you think that'd look to the cops?"

I swallowed. I had so much, and nothing, to say.

Wes was frowning when I climbed in the car.

"You 'kay, babe? What the big guy say to ya? You went a real funny color." He held out his weeds and I took one, automatically. I shook my head and told him to get us out of there.


	9. Chapter 9

I knew it hurt. That was the thing that had really freaked me.

 _Dallas swung first and he was laughing as he did it._

Sure, I'd seen guys fighting before, playground stuff, drunken shoving at parties. But not like _that_ , not cold and calm and walking away from one place to some other, more convenient place. Fighting by appointment.

 _Tim jabbed harder, heavier and to the gut, but he wasn't faster and Dallas was back with a second punch that caught Tim high on the side of his face._

Sometimes, with Stella, there was no getting out of it. I'd given up trying to talk my way out of trouble real early in life, but sometimes I was the wrong kind of quiet and that pissed her off anyway. So, I knew being hit hurt and I hadn't expected to enjoy being a spectator.

Besides, I was supposed to be on a date. I was so nearly on a date.

 **xxXxx**

"You wanna see a movie? Saturday? They got one of them lame beach ones at the Double, dunno what else."

'Laid back' didn't even begin to cover it. Him. It had taken me a second or two to get wise to the fact that Wes was asking me out.

Took me more than a second or two to answer.

Firstly, I thought about what it would mean to be properly attached to the Shepard gang, if I could make it stick. The blowback from that, of course, would be being on the outside again, if Wes ditched me.

That first day, when Lana painted my nails, she'd asked me where I lived. I didn't think she was playing games so I told her the truth and she laughed and slapped her own forehead.

"Of course that's you! I shoulda worked that out. You look enough like your sister."

"You know Stella?" I squeaked.

"Seen her around." She smiled and I waited. But what Lana followed up with was, "She's a real looker. Man, she has some cool threads. You get to borrow her stuff?"

I shook my head, struck mute.

"Shame. I'd about kill for that red dress. Y'know the one with the slash neck…" As she chattered on, an unusual sensation of relaxation washed over me. Even in the good times with Ponyboy there was always the minefield in the background. The subject that was never raised, or even mentioned. I'd realized that he _knew_ , the same as Darry had come into the knowledge, then Soda. But between us we ignored it and I'd thought that was okay with me. Lana's non-judgement, possibly even approval on some level, was something else entirely. I didn't want to lose a place where I was accepted in spite of everything. And if I didn't go with her cousin, he couldn't kick me to the curb.

But if I didn't go with her cousin, maybe the invitation to stay wasn't there at all.

Who knew how long it took for all of that to tornado around my brain. While, bizarrely, like a radio playing, I could hear The Shangri-Las loud and clear… _What's a girl supposed to do?_

But then I sneaked another glance at Wes. He was waiting patiently on my answer. 'Laid back' would have to do, until I found a better description. As for the rest of him, well, he greased his hair as much as the next guy—and bearing in mind that the next guy was Tim Shepard that meant _greased_ —but there was always one lock that escaped, to hang over his left eye. And for some reason, he was incapable of saying the word 'okay' in full, he lost the 'o' somewhere along the line. But it wasn't something that bugged me. Nothing about him bugged me.

"A movie would be cool," I said.

"Yeah? 'Kay, I'll pick you up." He had a car, a rattly old two tone, two door junker that just about kept up with whatever it was that Tim drove. Needless to say, he was hopelessly proud of it. I figured I'd been in worse, and without the promise of a movie first. Of course I still asked him to meet me somewhere away from home.

It turned out it was indeed some lame beach movie showing, but it made no difference to me. And when Wes picked a spot near the fence, towards the back, to park up, I wasn't surprised. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The only unusual thing about the night was me. I couldn't work out why I was almost nervous. I'd changed outfits about four times, meaning I had to practically run to make the meeting, but that was probably in case Lana was there too, I told myself, after what she'd said about Stella's wardrobe. It was nice though, to get in the car and notice that Wes had spruced up as well; he smelled of soap and his jeans were clean.

He smiled and moved his arm along the back of the seat, making an obvious space for me. I slid close to him and waited. Usually, they kissed me like it was already a done deal.

"You want some popcorn, or something? Before the movie starts?" He leaned against me, his hand resting easily on my arm.

Usually I demanded assorted candy, Coke—presuming there was something to liven it up—plus a hot dog, or a burger on the way home. "Maybe in a while," I said.

"'Kay." He smiled. And then he asked me what kind of movies I liked. Since we were agreed that this one blew, big time. For some reason I couldn't think of a single one that I'd enjoyed. So I just listened as he told me why 'The Magnificent Seven' was the greatest movie in the history of movies.

After a little while Wes stopped talking and we watched some stupid broad shimmy about in a bikini on the screen. Then,

"I was thinking—" he said, leaning close enough to kiss me.

But whatever was on his mind I never found out and I never got the kiss either because a face appeared at the window and made both of us jump by banging on the glass.

Wes swore a blue streak and pulled away from me, flinging open the door. "This'd better be good," he snapped.

"Yeah, man, Tim said to round everyone up an' that you was here, so I come on over. Sorry, man," the kid added, with a guilty glance my way, "…only Tim's gone apeshit, says he's hunting Winston for a beating an' everyone's on call."

"Who's here?" Wes asked, as my squeaked "Dallas?" went unanswered.

"You," answered the kid, unnecessarily. "I mean, only you with wheels. Tim said, can you pick up him and Lana 'cause of what Winston done."

"Where is he?" Wes said, turning over the engine, as they ignored me asking "What'd he do?"

"Over to The Corner."

I knew from just a few days with the gang, that 'The Corner' was the little convenience store near Tim's pad. The unit next to it was empty and the lot outside was their local hang out. One of those fancy magazine photographers should've come by sometime; most nights it was like a scene out of some sensational 'all teens are delinquents' movie. James Dean should've been so lucky, to look as tough as the guys who hung around that particular corner. They'd have wiped him over the freaking sidewalk.

"Thought he was coming here?" Wes backed the car up, having let the kid scramble in the back. "'M'sure Lana said they was coming over."

"That's what I'm saying, man. Winston done for the tires on Tim's car." That got a whistle from Wes, like no cuss words would fit. I wondered what that meant for Dallas. Once the car roared out onto the street, I tried a third question.

"He's crazy, is why." Wes rolled his eyes as he answered me. "Winston don't need no reason to pull this kind of shit. But he's—" He wrenched the car sideways, slamming on the brakes outside a hardware store promising the lowest paint prices in town, where there was a blond figure leaning on the wall, in full sight of the street.

Dallas took the weed out of his mouth to smile lazily, as Wes opened the car door and climbed out. The kid who'd been acting as Tim's messenger looked about ready to pee his pants, but he scrambled after Wes all the same.

"Believe you got somewhere to be." Wes sounded calm, reasonable. Dallas blinked slowly, finishing his cigarette without rushing.

Wes spoke over his shoulder and asked me to please move into the back. I don't think Dallas had any idea I was in the car until that point. His eyes slid over me, then back to Wes.

"C'mon, then," he said. "Where we doin' this?"

Wes motioned for him to get in the passenger seat. And Dallas did it. The kid had made me shove over, so he was behind Dallas and then he sat forwards, one hand on the front seat, and that hand holding a—closed—switch. He didn't look so scared any more.

Dallas hadn't looked scared for one second and now he rode with one elbow on the window, lounging. He yawned. "How ya doing, Lain?"

"Better than you," I shot back. "How long you been out?"

"Only today," he answered. "Else, y'know..." He winked. Fucking winked at me! I shut up tight. I was so nearly on a date.

The Corner lot was crowded with guys, plus a knot of girls off to one side; Tim's messengers had done their job. Now the boys flanked him as Dallas eased out of the car to face up to whatever he had coming.

"Sorry 'bout the movie," Wes said quietly, before walking over to Tim. The movie we'd both run down as utter crap. "An' sorry I never had time to take you home. Stick by Lana, 'kay?"

There was an alleyway that cut behind the stores, angling down towards the rail yard, with a hole in the fence at the end. From there it was a short walk to the shadowy spaces between the storage sheds. Tim's guys kept a lid on it until we were well past any lights, any sign of life, but they fizzed all the same, bumping shoulders and slapping walls when the anticipation bubbled over.

Mandy and one of the other girls cussed some about squeezing through the fence and walking over the broken ground, but they all kept up. Lana stayed quiet, deliberately—I thought—not distracting Tim. I stuck near her as everyone formed a rough circle and Tim and Dallas faced off.

 **xxXxx**

"You're awful quiet. You hacked at Wes, for not taking you home?" Lana was driving. Wes had thrown his keys to her, when it was all over, because he and a couple of the older guys were shadowing Tim back to his pad, 'to sink a few beers'. No one admitted that the gang leader might need patching up. Because it was impossible to hand out a punishment beating without also being on the receiving end.

 _Tim's eye was already swelling, as he threw Dallas down on the dirt and delivered an almighty kick to his ribs._

"No," I answered up quickly. "I ain't hacked at him."

"He'll make it up to you," she continued on her theme anyhow. "Betcha get a plenty nice date, next time. He digs you, for real." She laughed. I wondered how she could be so chilled, when her boyfriend was all kinds of hurt. "I mean, he'll probably kill me for tellin' ya so. But it's kind of obvious."

Was it? Was it as obvious as Dallas implying he'd have swung by to hook up with me? As obvious as his wink?

 _Dallas had stopped laughing. The gang whooped and jeered, even some of the girls. But all I could hear was the absence of laughter._

 **xxXxx**

"You want me to take you home?"

After my run in with Darry, I was still in Wes's car, as he drove aimlessly. Pony and Johnny were gone. Gone. While I'd been watching Tim and Dallas fight for...fun, they'd been in a real life and death situation. And now for every greaser on the look out, there was a Soc with a whole other agenda for finding them. Tensions were sky high and even with the cops around there were plenty of places for jumpings; for revenge, or justice, or whatever they saw as their God-given Socy right to inflict on us. That was why, when I'd said I was heading to the Curtis pad, Tim had told Wes to drive me.

I'd noticed it was Tim's instruction. Even though Wes had smiled at me, and joked about our date being a bust, I'd noticed that. Now I shrugged.

"You can drop me at the end of my street."

"I know I _can_. I asked if you _want_ me to."

I shook my head, too wary to let any hope rise up in me.

"I know this ain't much of a date neither—" Wes had turned onto the new freeway, pulling up at a truck stop diner that was almost empty. And certainly nowhere any Socs would hang out. "Only, with things the way they are, ain't nobody gonna be out by themselves, evenings. Not 'til we get this shit sorted." He killed the engine and turned to me. "But that don't mean we won't get a night to ourselves, somewhen. If you still want?"

I itched to move the hair out of his eye. Although, I liked the fact that it fell forward like it did. Maybe I was just itching to touch it.

I nodded, to indicate that I did 'still want'.

"Cool." Wes reached out and brushed my cheek, gently and not right on the bruise. He didn't ask. Which is probably why I told him it was a reminder to keep my mouth shut, should the fuzz ask me anything about my friendship with a boy wanted for murder. Not that I'd needed telling. But nothing in my life was important unless it impacted on Stella; the idea that I might bring the police around her house had well and truly tipped her over the edge.

"So, you used to hang with those guys then? Winston an' that lot?"

I shrugged. "Not so's you'd notice. I went to school with Ponyboy. Before." _...he had the biggest crush on you..._

Out of the blue, Wes laughed. "Just realized. Tim 'n Winston can be each other's alibis, for last night. Won't that stick in the cops' craw." He nodded towards the diner. "You want something? Let's get a soda or something."

Obviously the police would most likely haul in regular troublemakers, but Tim had a whole _gang_ of people to give him an alibi if it came to that. Besides which, the Socs had identified Pony and Johnny, hadn't they? That was the whole point. But before I said any of that, it hit me, as I followed Wes inside, that it wasn't his amusement at the cops having to take two hoods' words that was the important thing.

He'd just asked if I hung around with Dallas.

And he hadn't called me on my plainly evasive answer.


	10. Chapter 10

So, people say things without meaning them. All the time. Or even if they think they mean them, maybe they don't, not for real. Like when Stella launched the comment, ' _Oh, why don't you go get yourself knocked up, so I can ship you off somewhere?_ ' it wasn't a serious instruction. Maybe I was still ornery enough to make sure it was never going happen, if for no other reason than to prove her wrong. And maybe someone might have wondered if that was her real smart intention, but only someone who believed that she gave a shit. Words without meaning, that was all.

 **xxXxx**

"You have to be kidding."

I'd scowled at Dallas and it had made not one speck of difference. He still boosted himself up and inside my window, like he did it every damn night. And it hadn't been a regular thing, at all. There'd been that one time, the first time, when he fixed the door wedge for me. And once again after that, was all, so why he was acting like this was okay, this was something he could just _do_ , any time he liked—

"Go away. I ain't even talking to you. I'll tell...Tim," I changed the threat at the last second. I took a step back and folded my arms, doing a good impression of someone who could care less about the cut I could see on his lip. It hadn't been bleeding when he fought Tim a couple of days ago. I remembered that.

"Is that supposed to scare me? 'Cause you're cozy with Shepard's go-fer?"

"He ain't that! And no..." I frowned, running out of justification.

Dallas smiled wolfishly. "How come you ain't out with lover boy, huh? Wouldn't be anything to do with Tim _not_ being arrested, would it?"

"What'd you hear?"

"Ain't so much what I heard, as what I'm guessing." He was so frigging pleased with himself. "Seein' as how Tim don't usually like to be in the passenger seat, not when there's sweet, _hot_ wheels like that involved, even if they ended up in some ditch..."

I nearly rubbed my arm, where it was bruised from the sudden impact, as I remembered the flashing lights coming up behind us too quickly. Damn, but I could still hear Wes screaming at Tim to get out, at me and Lana too, as he scrambled behind the wheel in time for the cops to 'catch' him, as we darted away into the shadows.

"You better keep your trap shut."

"What am I gonna do? Tell the fuckin' cops?" Dallas bristled. "They don't know shit about shit." He ran his tongue over his damaged lip, without seeming to notice that he was doing it. Suddenly I was sure he wasn't talking about Wes.

"Do you know where Pony went?"

"Nope." He was lying. Obviously. But before I could challenge him, he went on, "Am I right, then? 'Bout Shepard? And the car?"

"It makes more sense this way," I said with all the confidence I could muster. I'd had it explained to me by Tim, then Lana, then Tim again more forcefully, when I was still freaked by the turn of events. Wes wasn't quite eighteen yet, which wasn't true for Tim, who also had some kind of bench warrant outstanding. "The judge will go easier on Wes, is all."

Dallas scoffed at me, or the plan. "Reckon there won't be no 'going easy' on anyone this side of the tracks for a good while, not with all the shit going down 'bout Johnny's Soc." I scowled, and he shrugged. "Way things are right now, anyone from our turf is screwed. Hell, Sheldon's old man is some Country Club big shot, probably best buddies with every judge in town."

I asked him, without thinking, who Sheldon was and what he had to do with Wes.

"Jeez, doll, ain't Johnny and Pony all over the news? That's the Soc they did for. Read a fucking paper sometime." He advanced on me, his expression shifting, the wolf back in his eyes. "You got anything to drink?"

I ducked out of range. "No."

"Wanna fool around anyhow?" It wasn't really a question. He was already half way to the bed. He was genuinely surprised when I said no again and stood my ground.

"Why'd you tell Darry that we got it on?"

He laughed a little. "So what if I did? Kept quiet on his say so, too, didn't I? I don't even know why he had such a stick up his ass about it. You ain't exactly a well kept secret. What's it matter?"

What did it matter?

"Where's your girlfriend tonight?" I taunted him.

He started to lie, then must have realized from my tone that I already knew he and Sylvia had broken up, because his tone changed. "What's your deal? You think _we_ oughta go steady, 'cause I ain't got that bitch dragging me down no more?" He sneered as he headed for the window, "I got news for you, Lainey. You ain't that kind of girl."

It didn't bother me. I barely heard him. I'd been called worse and more inventively. No, the thing that came back to me later, over and over and over, was what I said in return. Words without meaning. At the time.

As he left, as I reached for the window and shut it on him, as I looked at him without knowing it was for the very last time, I opened my mouth and said, "Drop dead, Dallas."

 **xxXxx**

"Are you buying that? This ain't a library, y'know." The store clerk curled her lip at me. I dug around for a nickel, turning from the counter in a daze, eyes still on the Saturday morning paper in my hand. "Hey! Your cigarettes." She clicked her tongue at me, holding out the pack I'd already paid for. The pack I'd gone in for, when I caught sight of the photo on the stack of newspapers on the counter.

 _Read a fucking paper sometime._

There was Pony, but not Pony, something was weird about his hair in the picture. Something weirder about his eyes, like he was posing for the photographer but his mind was elsewhere.

Walking slowly out onto the sidewalk, I sounded out the headline: ' _Juvenile Delinquents Turn Heroes_.'

'Delinquents' was a tough one, I didn't see why they couldn't have just printed 'hoods'. I scanned the columns, spotting Johnny's and Dallas's names without taking in much else. Isolated words. _Fire. Hospital. Park. Manslaughter_. Because despite the headline, the article shifted quickly to being about the dead Soc and Johnny. When I read that he was being charged with manslaughter 'if he recovered', I had to go back and see why the reporter would say 'if'...

I sat on a low wall, feeling slightly sick, forcing my eyes to read on. The last section talked about the Curtis boys. In the photo they looked—even with Pony's weird hair—more like each other than I'd ever noticed before.

I tossed the screwed up paper towards an overflowing trash can as I set off towards the DX.

There were no cars out front when I got there, just a figure leaning on the nearest pump, twisting a strip of rag around his fingers, one by one, first one way then back again.

One time, Dallas's guy down at Buck's had this speed that wasn't speed. Or if it was, it was cut with something else, something even more. I didn't like the feeling that my blood was going to leap right out my veins, but I was reminded of it as I watched that bit of cloth flick back and forth. Despite the fact that his eyes were still shadowed by lack of sleep, Sodapop had that hummingbird heartbeat going on, and then some. This was a terrible time for there to be no customers; he needed to be busy. I'd seen Mrs. C. handle it, handle him when he got this way, by getting him to count her clothes pins into lines, by size and color. It was useless work, but it brought him down.

I knew another way to do that. I actually had a couple of reds tucked in the lining of my purse, but I didn't like my chances of slipping him one.

Soda nodded hello at me.

"Is it true?" I asked, cutting to the chase. "Is Pony home? He okay?"

Soda nodded, about three times too many. "He's okay. Or will be. I guess.

"And Johnny...?"

"Idon'tknowwedidn'tgettoseehim," came at me in one exhalation. "He'll be okay, though. He will." Less like optimism than desperation. I wondered if Soda was much of a newspaper reader.

"You here to pick up new tires for Shepard?" Steve appeared from out back somewhere, considerably more covered in dirt and oil than Soda. "What with you being all over Shepard gang business." His snarky comment was accompanied by a frank stare.

"If that was true, it'd be kind of dumb of you to piss me off, wouldn't it?" I said, and caught Soda hiding a smile. "But, for your information, I think Tim already got his hands on some tires. Probably somewhere better'n this dump." I returned the sneer, looking towards his crummy workshop.

Steve coughed his indignation. "Yeah. More like hot off someone's else's ride."

"Shall I tell him you were asking?" I said sweetly. "So you two can talk about it at the rumble?"

"Hey, don't you start no shit—"

"Quit it, both of y'all," interrupted Soda. "There's no beef between us and Shepard, and that's how it's staying. Tonight's important." He started to say something to me, but a car pulled in, full of Socy guys who turned their heads to us all at the same time, like freaking robots.

When Soda moved towards the rear of the car, hand out for the gas cap, the car slid forwards a little. And again.

"You want gas, or not?" he snapped.

"What else you got on offer, grease?" The guys in the car hooted as the driver nodded towards me.

Steve stepped forwards, between me and the car, clenching his fists. "Get lost, asswipe. Go get your gas somewhere else."

They all laughed again, calling out, "See you tonight," as they gunned it away.

I regarded the back of Steve Randle's head, as he and Soda scowled until the Socs were out of sight. He had a very precise duck tail going on, and enough pomade worked in that the lines of his comb showed clearly in the swoops of hair either side.

 **xxXxx**

I tapped lightly on the glass. Then when he didn't even look around, I tapped harder, using my scarlet painted nails. And it wasn't the same as the sound of knuckles on my own window. It wasn't.

Climbing in windows looks a lot easier than it actually is, I quickly realized, as I balanced on the upturned crate that someone had positioned right outside the bedroom. Either Pony or Soda must have had occasion to avoid their big brother sometime, whether coming or going. They'd never tried it in a skirt though.

I swung inside inelegantly, then braced for some wisecrack. Or some snarky dismissal. Something. Anything.

Ponyboy blinked at me. Neither pissed, nor glad to see to me.

I knew he'd been hospitalized. And I hadn't needed the newspaper to tell me so. Everything that happened the night of the rumble crackled like wildfire, into every corner of the neighborhood; no one talked about anything else for days. And now he was home and I needed...to get something back. It wouldn't be the big thing, the real important thing, but maybe I could get something back.

"Hey, Pony. How you doin'?" My whisper sounded scratchy as it crossed the stale air between us. Ponyboy shrugged. He was thin, and pale, and somehow _less_. Despite the fact he was dressed, he looked half asleep. There was a pile of books near him, but they were just out of his arms' length, so I didn't think he'd been the one to put them there.

'Not quite himself'. Soda's description. My second visit to the gas station inside of a week. But Soda was unnervingly calm the second time as I asked again, if Pony was okay. Not quite _himself_ either. Nobody quite themselves, maybe not even me.

I knew where Soda was right then. I knew where they all were, apart from Pony and Darry. The coldest place on earth. The place nobody our age should be, not for another service like that. Definitely not forever. None of them should.

 _"Where's the 'shoulda' in all this?" Dallas, angry and sad and ready to take the day down. "You think they shoulda died?"_

Stop.

"I wanted to tell you I'm sorry," I stumbled over the words and Pony still looked blank, forced me to explain: "I said some horrible things to you."

"Did you?" His brow creased slightly. "I guess it doesn't matter now."

There was no rush of happiness that I'd been forgiven. Nothing felt mended. I was an idiot for thinking it could be.

A noise from further inside the house made me hold my breath, but Pony didn't react. Maybe he no longer cared about breaking his big brother's rules. I sat on the edge of the bed, since he hadn't thrown me out. Yet.

Out of nowhere, he asked me, "Do you know how much a doctor's visit is?"

I told him I had no idea.

"He comes, but he doesn't do more'n talk to me." Pony chewed his fingernail. "That probably still costs, though, right?"

"Don't sweat it," I heard the words, without knowing I was going to say them. "Darry will deal with it." I reached for the nearest book, for something else to talk about. It was a school library book.

"Can you return that for me? It must be overdue."

I swallowed. "Uh..."

"I would ask Curly, if I thought he knew where the library was, only he ain't been by."

"Curly? He's in the reformatory."

"Oh. Yeah. I knew that." He frowned that slightly unreal frown, like he wasn't really committed to the expression. "I guess I'll haveta hang with Two-Bit or Steve then, when I'm back at school. I don't wanna get jumped."

 _It ain't like that no more_ , I wanted to say, _not since_...

Stop.

"I can't take the book in for you. I dropped out. I got a job." The words still sounded like they belonged to someone else. My life still felt like it belonged to someone else. I was two weeks off sixteen. By the time the school figured out I wasn't going back, it would be a done deal.

"Oh. Okay."

"You ain't gonna ask where?" I smiled, willing him to smile back. "Come by The Dingo sometime, I'll slip you a Pepsi on the house."

"For real? It's kind of rough...I mean, for _you_ to work there." I was pleased that he caught on I was about to razz him. I told him I could handle anything and anyone, in a plenty exaggerated tough-guy tone.

"'Sides," I added, "ain't I got you to back me up?"

"Well, if there's free Pepsi in it..." This time he smiled.

We chatted a little, about nothing much. Then I said I'd better split. There hadn't been any more noise to suggest we were going to be busted, but I didn't want to push my luck. Besides, Pony seemed tired, so I made my goodbyes and scooted up onto the window ledge, swinging my legs out before I jumped down, trying not to flash my underwear at the whole street.

I was straightening my skirt as I sneaked through the back yard and saw Darry, sitting on the back steps, his elbows on his knees as he stared at the worn surface between his feet.

"Hey, Lainey," he said, real quiet, without looking up. "Thanks for coming to see him. Use the door next time."


	11. Chapter 11

After a while, I woke up to the fact that I no longer had a shadow every time I worked The Dingo; when I first started there, at least one Shepard gang member would be hanging around throughout my shift. Not that it was unusual for them all to be there, but there was obviously some point being made in the early days that I was under their wing.

At first I'd even been surprised that Lana still asked me over to her pad. She'd laughed and said I was her friend as much as I was Wes's girl.

Wes's girl.

Regardless of the fact that Wes was locked up. Regardless of the fact that he hadn't even kissed me. Perhaps she didn't know that last part.

I guess being labelled 'off limits' might have affected my tips in some other place, but The Dingo wasn't exactly the kind of joint where big spenders hung out. And I wasn't relying on making a living off the three or four shifts a week that I picked up, anyhow.

Maybe the protective Shepard gang presence also made things easier for Ponyboy when he started coming by after school, tucking into the corner booth that I kept clear for him, but I doubted he needed it. He had his own rep now, whether he knew it or not. Even the older guys who used the place referred to him behind his back as 'Billy the Kid', which made no sense seeing as how he wasn't the one who'd killed anyone. And even Johnny hadn't used a gun. The only killers with guns in the whole damn business had been the cops.

 _Stop._

I pushed that thought away so regularly, I barely noticed myself doing it. I was good at that. It slid back into the place where I locked away all the bad stuff.

I figured Pony was keeping out of Darry's way, for all he claimed that they'd reached some kind of understanding, said Darry was trying to be more chilled. Whatever was going on, nobody got up in Pony's face about him sitting there, quiet, with his book. Although I noticed, after a week or so, that it was the same damn one, so I called him on whether he was actually reading it.

He'd picked up this habit of smiling because he knew he _oughta_ , and he did that before he answered, "Nah, not really. Keeps people from talking to me though, if they think I'm doing something." It didn't seem to have occurred to him that maybe the hoods had another reason not to bother him. Personally, I guessed that enough of them had squeezed their way out from some charge or other that they didn't quite trust the fact that he'd been acquitted.

"Don't you wanna finish the story?" I couldn't even make out all the words in the title. But when we were younger he used to get through a book a day, it seemed to me. He thought about it for a second or two, before he shrugged.

"Can't seem to concentrate."

I wasn't sure what to say. He was pretty spaced, these days. I wished I could teach him how to stop thinking. A whistle from the counter made me look up. I collected the tray and took it outside, hooking it over the window of the waiting car. Luckily for me the menu was short and most people only ever wanted the basics, which made working out the checks easy enough.

The customer was a big guy, mid twenties, with acne scars. He came by on Thursdays, like clockwork. Double cheeseburger and a root beer. Plus—

"Don't forget dessert, baby," he always said the same thing. I slipped my hand in the pocket of my apron and palmed him what he wanted, sliding his folded payment back in one smooth move. No one expected change from those transactions.

Later that night, a couple of wannabe hoods in ill fitting leather jackets cornered me as I was carrying some trash back from the tables. One real lanky, one tiny. I mentally christened them 'Tom and Jerry' on the spot.

"Hey, someone told us you could hook us up."

I stared at them blankly. "Huh?"

"This guy, Bernie—"

"—Benny," the little one interrupted.

"Yeah, Benny. He said, you had some stuff."

"Stuff?" I could hardly keep a straight face.

The less twitchy one opened his hand to show me a roll of bills. "We ain't timewasters."

"Go around in back," I said quietly. "Don't let anyone see you. Wait by the dumpster." And I headed back inside and right through to the kitchen, where I smiled at the guy working the grill and nodded at the back door. When he opened it, it looked like he was helping me out, seeing as my hands were full. He followed me into the yard, kicking out at the stray dog that nosed around the trash cans on a regular basis.

The two guys came around the corner, looking nervous as all hell. Good. Loudmouths made for bad customers. I took a step back so they could see Nate was there. All six feet three of him, and looking like he'd learned his cooking skills in prison. Of course it helped that he carried a big ass chopping knife. I didn't think he even needed it in the kitchen, the meat for the burgers came ready processed. But it sure got the point across.

They were desperate though, which was something useful in a customer, and they approached us hopefully. Opening negotiations was best carried out in the relative privacy of the yard. I wanted to avoid arguing about dough out in the parking lot. But these saps were too stupid to even try and beat down the price. I still made sure they knew how to be cool out front, for any future deals.

They left, snickering over their haul and fully believing that they were going to be dealing with Nate, through his intermediary: me.

Just before we went inside I peeled off Nate's cut, for being my muscle. Most of the take would find its way back to Davey, Dallas's contact, of course. He couldn't be in two places at once and he liked hanging out at Buck's more than The Dingo. Fine by me.

"Listen," Nate said, with a cheeky smile, "you ever get any free samples?"

"Baby, what planet you living on? Nothing's free."

He grinned, slowly. "You sure? Reckon I could think of a couple of things..."

He was wrong, of course. If nothing else, being my mother's daughter had taught me that. I liked him okay though and he was real useful, so, when the other waitresses finished for the night, I stayed on the pretense of cleaning up. The Shepard gang babysitting had tailed off by then, besides, they were only ever looking for handsy customers out front. It wasn't like they had any way of seeing into the store room.

 **xxXxx**

Some freaky kind of coincidence had me working that particular day in January when Two-Bit showed up in his junker. I was still the newest car hop and the youngest, so I got the short straw when it came to bad weather; no matter how wet or cold it got, there were always a few hardy souls who refused to leave their cars and eat inside. Drive-in meant drive-in, after all.

"Hey, kiddo," Two-Bit greeted me, kind of solemn for him. That day of all days I wished he'd said something different. My mind swirled back to the four of us, huddled around the fire in the empty lot, exactly one year before.

One part of me felt like I hadn't seen Mrs. C. in a lifetime, another couldn't believe it had been a year already. What would it be like when the other anniversary came around? Although of course, the day that I'd told Dallas to drop dead loomed larger than the day he'd died in my mind, so I did what I always did—

Stop.

Two-Bit ordered a whole bunch of burgers to go. Said he was taking them over to the Curtis boys.

And then he asked me what else was on the menu.

"Huh?" I played dumb.

"Don't know much 'bout wine-making," he said, confusing me, until he went on, "but there's a hell of a grapevine in these parts. I heard this is quite the place for extras, these days."

"Still all about the gossip, huh?" It didn't sound friendly and I didn't intend it to.

"Nah, you got me all wrong." He glanced in his rear view mirror, as a dark blue car swung in off the road. "I'm hoping you ain't got a whole lot else wrong, is all. You know this has always been neutral territory, right?"

I laughed. "You kidding? Three guys got their lights punched out last week, in two separate fights. And I notice even you ain't dumb enough to park up on that side." I pointed at Tim's favorite parking place. Just one of the unwritten 'rules' about The Dingo.

"Personal stuff." He dismissed the fights. "And I ain't talking about jostling for dick room. I'm talking about business. Shepard's putting you in the firing line, if he's moving in—"

That surprised a response out of me. _"_ I ain't dealing for _Tim."_

"You ain't dealing for the _Tigers_ , not while hanging out at Shepard Central? That's suicide!" Two-Bit sounded genuinely horrified. I laughed at him. Although my eyes went over to the newly arrived car and the greasy guy behind the wheel.

"No, I ain't."

"...'cause you know they got everywhere between here and the bridge sewn up? Tim's small fry compared to them."

I winced. Saying something like that where it might get back to Tim, _that_ was suicide. Even if he was right. But I summoned up a short laugh. "I don't think I even know any Tigers. Get a few River Kings in here, weekends, mostly. You want me to introduce you?"

Two-Bit quirked an eyebrow. "Little girl, who'd you think you're talking to? I know every-fucking-body!" And yet. Not Dallas's guy, I would lay money. Two-Bit might drink at Buck's but Davey's dealing was mostly done out on the circuit, or to those who knew him from there. Dallas had told me the inevitability of rodeo injuries meant there was a steady market for under-the-counter pain killers, the stronger the better. Seemed only obvious the rest would follow. Having me work at The Dingo was the first time Davey had expanded his customer base outside that world.

 **xxXxx**

Of course Lana had some kind of countdown going. Of course the date was circled on the calendar and eagerly anticipated. The whole gang was looking forward to the Welcome Home party as much as his actual arrival. They seemed certain that Wes would get out right on time, that 'good behavior' would make it so. And why the hell shouldn't it, I thought but didn't say, seeing as how he never even did the thing that he got sent away for, in the first place? But their excitement must have been catching, because I found myself checking the lot a dozen times before Tim's car finally pulled in, and Wes climbed out.

Oh, he looked...different. In about a hundred ways and none. None that mattered anyhow.

For one, they must have made him get a haircut when he went in, because it was all kinds of messed up now, neither properly short nor long enough to be tuff, and the bit that always fell forwards was kicking up in a cowlick. He hadn't greased it yet, that was why.

He'd used to be skinnier, hadn't he? And I didn't remember him being a full inch taller than Tim, either. Sure, six months had sounded long when his sentence was handed out, but I'd never noticed what was enough time for someone to grow, to change, not for anyone I saw on a regular basis. Pony was taller than me now too and that must have happened in recent months. But nothing about him seemed to strike me the same way as _everything_ about Wes.

"Hey."

"Hey."

For a minute that was all the conversation we managed. Which was ridiculous, because even if it was the real first time I'd been meeting him, I wouldn't have been tongue tied. That wasn't who I was.

Then: "Thanks for the letters." His smile hadn't changed. And that made me happy, for some reason.

"'S'okay. Lana helped me with the address, y'know." I'd only sent a couple, three at the most. I wasn't even sure they counted as 'letters'. I'd felt stupid, trying to think of something to say, trying to write it down, so I'd settled for random postcards—bands and cartoon characters that I didn't even know if he liked.

"So, you're working here, huh?" He looked around, like he'd never seen The Dingo before. "What time do you get done? I mean, if you wanna...that is..."

As I started telling him that I'd make it to the party as soon as I finished, one of the older waitresses shrieked, "Lainey! I got orders backed up here!" distracting me. I gave Wes an apologetic shrug. I could have asked him to stick around. He looked like he probably would have, although Tim was hanging out his car window impatiently. But I needed to tell someone else that Wes was back.

Nate didn't take it well.

"So, what? You're blowing me off, 'cause some kid who you said ain't even your boyfriend is back in town?" At least he'd waited for the others to leave before sounding off. I never did know if the other staff worked out why I was so happy to do all the shitty closing jobs, but they sure never complained about it.

Out back, one of the trash can lids rattled, the sound cutting into the silence as I tried to think of a way to pacify Nate. I'd already flicked off all the lights in the booth area, so he was back lit by the kitchen light as he glared at me through the serving hatch.

I sighed, absently wiping down the counter. Headlights swept across the darkened room behind me.

What kind of idiot was pulling in, after close up?

Nate cussed about the dog, as the trash can clanged again.

"Shit," I glanced out the window, where the car had stopped, realizing that there was still a table outside that needed clearing. Personally I could care less if rats, or stray dogs, or freaking mountain lions, got a hold of the scraps, but the guy who opened up was a real whiner and I didn't want to hear another lecture about how lousy a worker I was.

"It ain't like we had anything in particular going," I said reasonably, heading for the door.

The car outside, low and dark, black, maybe blue, was parked across the lot, engine still running. What kind of idiot would choose the space outside The Dingo for a make out session? It was dark enough, but it wasn't exactly private. I pushed the front door open, crossing to the dirty picnic table, ready to yell at the horny idiots to get lost, and quick.

I got as far as opening my mouth, my hands already full of burger wrappers and empty fry dishes, when something weird, something wrong, stopped me in my tracks.

The movement behind the dark blue car was someone's arm swinging back and then forwards like a baseball pitcher, only launching a bottle, not a ball, through the air. A bottle with a glowing end, alight like a giant match. It flew through the open front door of The Dingo and smashed, the sharp sound of breaking glass something I must have heard a hundred times in my life. Flames sprayed up. Fast. So fast.

I screamed, only it came out thin and breathy. The trash fell from my hands.

A _whoomp_ came from way back in the building. Not a noise I'd ever heard before. And all the windows and the doorway bulged: orange, yellow, orange, as flames licked out of every possible space.

I screamed for real. Loud as hell.

" _Nate_?"


	12. Chapter 12

Even without looking around I knew the car had gone. Somewhere way at the back, my brain had registered the screeching tires, same as it registered the pounding footsteps as late night pedestrians were drawn to the light and the noise of the fire, adding to it with their shouts and whoops.

Not one of them was as close as I was, though. Maybe someone yelled at me not to, but I made a short run towards the door. The sight of the flames made me afraid; deep inside, a tight knot of fear made me want to curl up in a ball, somewhere else, somewhere safe. But it was the heat and the smoke that forced me back. The heat _of_ the smoke, it rolled up and over me, pushed me, blanketed my mouth and nose. I sat down hard on the scuffed gravel of the lot, unable to look away, although my eyes stung and teared up.

Sirens.

Shouting.

Hands on my shoulders, pulling me backwards.

I blinked, seeing uniforms, flashing lights; fire-fighters and cops trying to make sense of the nonsensical. They were herding bystanders, making lines that twisted and moved as soon as they turned their backs.

"Hey!" The hands were connected to a big old guy, the brim of his helmet shadowing his eyes. "Honey, you burned? You okay?" He moved my chin, looking at my face, reaching for my arms, pulling them out in front of me so he could inspect them.

"I'm okay." I stuttered. "But, _Nate_. Inside. Nate's inside."

The guy's eyes went over my shoulder and his expression flickered. He stood up, waving for attention. "Joe! Civilian reported inside."

Another man looked over, from where a whole gang of 'em was spraying jets of water, passed the shout on. Then the crowd of uniforms parted, for a stretcher being carried through, towards an ambulance that had pulled up behind the fire trucks.

The lot was as full of vehicles as if it was a Saturday night. _I'd have been run off my feet, if they'd all been wanting full orders_ , the thought crossed my mind, absurd and unwanted.

"Hey, honey? This who you said was in there? Or we looking for someone else?" The fire-fighter pulled me to my feet, pulled me to the ambulance, showed me Nate on the stretcher. Not burned up, but hard to recognize because of the blood covering half his face, matting his hair. His eyes were closed. The stretcher had come from around the back of the building. Maybe Nate had made it to the back alley?

I nodded. The fire-fighter asked me other questions, but I wasn't sure what he wanted, what I could say that would make any difference to the situation. When he passed me to another set of hands I was grateful. But then I was sitting in the back of a cruiser and it was a different set of questions. Not ' _Is anyone else in there_?', but ' _Who did this? Did you see who did this? What happened? What did you see_?'

I shook my head. Told the cop I knew nothing. Burst into tears and asked to go home.

What I got was a ride to the station, because some busybody in the crowd had told the cops they'd seen a car full of hoods leaving the scene and _I must've seen it too, because I was right there, wasn't I?_

 **xxXxx**

I sat, shivering, in the room where they'd left me. My hair smelled of smoke, my uniform was all streaked where I'd rubbed my hands on it. I kept hearing the _whoomp_ , hearing the crackling of the flames, seeing the blood all over Nate's face. I rubbed my palms on my thighs again.

The cop came back in. This one hadn't been at The Dingo, he was more of an indoor-question guy, looking like he drove a desk full time, not a police car.

"Okay, I think we're about done, but we need to make a call about you being here," he said, not unkindly. None of what he'd said had been unkind. He'd brought me a soda before the questions started, asked if I was okay. I'd wondered if he had kids, maybe a daughter my age. I still hadn't told him anything. _Yes_ , a car, and someone threw something—they knew that much already, no point in pretending—but, _No_ , I didn't know the make or model, it was dark and I was busy cleaning up. I said I didn't know anything about cars anyway, maybe it was a soft top, I wasn't sure— _it wasn't and I was_ —and _No_ , I hadn't seen the driver. Or who threw the 'something'.

I'd told him basically nothing, so what the hell was his deal with keeping me now?

"Am...am I arrested?" I blinked hard.

"No, sweetie, you ain't. But we ain't just gonna let ya wander off into the night. It's nigh on three in the morning. You need a responsible adult to come get ya."

I swallowed. "My mom's out of town." I bit back the urge to tell him I was freaking sixteen years old and perfectly capable of looking after myself. I'd considered lying wholesale about my name, my age, everything, but figured that would only get me in more trouble down the line, since they already knew where I worked so they could find out who I was. And I was just an innocent witness, after all. But he didn't seem to have recognized 'Coleman' and maybe he didn't care anyhow. Stella had been real careful. As far as I knew she hadn't been arrested once in all the time we'd lived here. She liked a professional mark, someone with a respectable job, someone who had something to lose, if they ever thought about reporting her. 'Under the radar' suited her, as far as the authorities went. There was no way in hell I was having this cop call her, no matter how kind he was.

He wasn't letting it go, though. "Well, who'd she leave in charge?"

Was that what people— _parents_ —were supposed to do? Nominate someone 'responsible' to look after their kids? Shit. Of course they were. I knew that. Seen it in action, hadn't I?

"...Over twenty one and not on the most wanted list would be good," prompted the cop, before I could volunteer anything. He was trying to be funny, but it confirmed my thoughts.

"Oh." I smiled. "Yeah. There's someone."

 **xxXxx**

Of course I knew the number. It was the only number I knew by heart for years, back when Pony was my only friend. Who the hell else did I have to call, back then? Not that I ever needed to use it. Still, I knew it, like I knew everything about that house. Knew it in the same way that I knew Mrs. C. always used Tide but would buy Dreft if it was on sale: I'd hoarded every little thing about that house. Details for my imaginary world, when it was _my_ phone number that I would pretend to give out airily, telling imaginary acquaintances not to call at dinner time because 'Mom' liked us all around the table. Probably the only time I saw Mrs. C. hacked off with Darry was when he leaped up from the table to take a call, mid-meal.

"It's a g-irl," Soda had singsonged, delightedly. It probably was, I thought now, remembering how Darry had scowled and turned away, hunching over the handset and whispering.

He was scowling a bit now, as well, but I could hardly blame him since I'd be pretty pissed myself to be woken up and called to the cop station in the middle of the night.

"My God, Lainey," he said, when we got to his truck. "Are you sure you're okay?" The cop had told him I didn't need medical attention, but Darry didn't seem to believe him.

"Sure," I told him, easing into the passenger side, wiping at a mark on my pants leg. "Goddamn fuzz just didn't wanna taxi me home."

"Lainey!" He hadn't started the engine.

"Sorry they bothered ya. But it ain't like you hadda post bail," I chirped. "If you want gas money, I'll—" Shit, my purse was back at The Dingo. If there was anything left of it.

Flames.

Blood.

" _Lainey_." This time his voice was much quieter, so why it seemed more forceful, I had no clue.

I slid my eyes over to him, then back to my lap again. "I'm sorry," it came out as a whisper. "They wouldn't let me go, not without an adult. An' I couldn't call...Stella."

"It's okay." I misheard him, I thought. I only realized I was crying when he thrust a handkerchief in my hand. "It's okay, you don't have to explain." He started up the truck and backed out onto the street, leaving the station behind.

The handkerchief was soon smeared with grey, sooty streaks, possibly mascara, possibly the residue of the smoke. I wondered if I could get away with moving the rear view mirror, to see myself. I must look like shit, maybe that was why Darry was being so nice.

The truck idled at an intersection—no traffic to care whether he made the turn or not—where the choice was _right_ to the neighborhood, or _left_ for downtown. He stared to the right, chewed his lip, and then Darry took a breath, almost like he was working up the nerve to ask me, "Were you in the fire? The cop said the building's gone. Were you breathing the smoke?"

I shook my head. "I was outside. Though you wouldn't know it." I sniffed my shirt, my hands. When Darry stayed quiet, I sneaked a glance at him. His face was set, his whole jaw tight, and it hit me then that he'd probably been warned about the dangers of smoke inhalation after Pony was in the hospital. When Pony and Johnny were in the hospital. Which was _left_ , for downtown. The direction he was _not_ looking.

I didn't need to go to the hospital. But the other option suddenly seemed wrong, too.

"I'm supposed to be someplace," I told Darry. "I don't wanna go back to your house." Despite the flash of relief that flickered across his face, he opened his mouth to argue, but I plowed right on, "I don't want Pony to see me like this."

His eyes met mine then. And neither of us had to go into details. He didn't want Pony to see me like that, either. Nor smell the smoke on me. I finally understood that his attitude was never against me, personally, it was always _for_ Ponyboy. If Mrs.C. had lived to see me do the things I did, behave the way I behaved, she'd have been the same about protecting the youngest Curtis from such a bad influence. Who would blame her?

I'd never put such a fierce, protective big brother in my fantasy world because it was outside the power of my imagination. But I saw him now.

"Where then?" Darry asked. "If you don't want to go home?"

I smiled and got him to drop me at the end of Tim's street.

Music was coming from the house still, although it was something slow, and the people on the porch and in the yard were mostly sitting or lying around, not dancing. I'd always liked the winding down part of parties, as it got to be morning. Sometimes it didn't even matter if you'd taken anything, the relaxed vibe was contagious enough.

One of the figures in the shadows was Lana. I knew she'd be cool enough to lend me some clothes, until I could get home again. I couldn't wait to ditch my Dingo uniform. She pushed up onto her feet as I walked across the front yard, stood above me on the porch steps, almost like she was blocking the way.

"The guys got Wes wasted," she said. "He passed out about an hour ago. I guess he thought you wasn't coming."

"There was—"

"We heard." Tim appeared, handed a bottle to Lana, sipped from one of his own, his arm draped across her shoulders, his body filling in the barrier across the step.

"I was at the station. The cops made me go."

"That so?" He sounded almost bored. But I'd seen him this cold, this apparently disinterested, before. I swallowed. Despite the music, it suddenly seemed very quiet.

"I never told 'em nothin'."

Tim sipped his beer, his eyes never leaving mine. "And what exactly would you have to 'not tell' 'em about?" He let go of Lana, moved down a step. Oh, hell. "Some horse-shit-covered hick dealer who thinks it's smart to move in on someone else's neighborhood?"

"No, I—"

He took a step forward every time I tried to speak and I took a step back.

"Some stupid little chick who thinks it's okay to piss off Tony Bianco, to make him think I got ideas to move into Tigers' turf?"

"No, I—" I looked desperately at Lana. Her face was completely expressionless.

Tim moved again and for a split second I thought he was going to hit me. I held my breath, but he just made a dismissive wave.

"Piss off and cry on your rodeo clown's shoulder. You're done here."

I walked.


	13. Chapter 13

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I don't remember how old I was when I first realized different people meant different things by the word 'home'. Long before Tulsa, that was for sure. Long before Stella announced we'd be going by 'Coleman'. We always had a new name to go with our new houses. Back then? Christ knows what we were called. But when some little girl at some playground skinned her knee and immediately cried and wanted to 'go home', I do remember wondering why.

As I let myself in the kitchen door, my long ago confusion clawed its way back into my mind. Why would anyone want to go back home, if they had a choice?

I must have been all out of choices.

It turned out I'd unknowingly told the indoor cop the truth, because the place was empty. I had no idea where Stella was. It wasn't like we were in the habit of leaving each other notes.

 _– If I'm running late, you boys can have one cookie each. Your big brother is in charge until I get home._

 _– Pony, bring in the laundry if it looks like rain. It's Soda's turn to cook. Remind him._

Perhaps scribbled words on scraps of paper were the difference between a house and a home.

I showered, dressed, and without making a conscious decision, began packing a bag. There was a roll of bills in Stella's closet, among the other stuff in the shoebox I wasn't supposed to know about. I only pocketed the dough. I wondered about my purse and its contents, back at The Dingo, and then hated myself, because there was something way more important to consider.

Hospitals don't really do closing times, it seemed, as I walked down yet another brightly lit corridor. It was barely dawn outside, but there were nurses on every corner, doctors deep in conversation as they walked, orderlies and unidentified people in chairs and elevators.

The cop sitting outside Nate's room was a shock, though.

He summoned up the energy to ask me, where did I think I was going? Where the fuck did it look like I was going? I swear being able to question the obvious must be a requirement at cop school.

"My friend was hurt," I said, bringing out my best, most innocent tone. I was thinking like myself way more than I had been, right after the fire. And this was a tired beat cop, not some suspicious detective. "I wanted to see how he's doin'."

"He's still out of it, far as I know. And he ain't having visitors. We're waiting on the doc to clear him so's we get to re-arrest him." He muttered something about a doctor claiming Nate wasn't fit to understand the first time around.

"Arrest him for what?" I went for 'breathless with horror', while I wondered about what he said.

"For the fricking pharmacy shoved up his shirt. Looks like he was tryin' make a swift exit with his supply close to his heart. Took a pretty good knock to the head on the way out."

"Oh, how awful!" I bit my lip, hard, widened my eyes. "Please can I just see him for a second?" I smiled for all I was worth.

The blood was washed off his face, but a large dressing was positioned over Nate's temple, giving him a lopsided look. He was about as pale as the bandage. He was also awake.

I scurried up to the bed, my finger to my lips, before he had a chance to say anything. He blinked at me, stumbled out my name in a hoarse whisper, like he wasn't sure if it was me.

"You okay?" I stupidly asked, keeping my own voice low.

He said, "M'head hurts. But I'm okay." Only it didn't sound like it. Especially when he followed up with, "What happened?"

"To The Dingo? It burned down." To him? I was still thinking about that.

"For real?" He seemed to take the news okay, then: "Was there an accident? I think a nurse said I was in an accident…"

I swallowed, unable to stop my eyes darting to where I knew the cop was sitting outside. I told Nate not to worry about nothing. His eyes had fluttered closed for a second, but he tried for a smile when he opened them, which was encouraging, I thought. Until,

"Lainey, that you? What happened?"

 **xxXxx**

Apart from the day we arrived, I hadn't ever been to the bus station. But that wasn't the problem. Anyone could buy a goddamn ticket. True, it would be mighty suspicious to act on my growing desire to simply throw all of Stella's dough at the cashier, then ask for the furthest place it would get me to. So I'd decided I would scan the arrivals board without being obvious about it, pick a likely sounding destination, and make like I knew what I was doing.

I didn't even get that far.

Oh, in my head, I was already on the bus, already in some other town where I could reinvent myself and get it right. Why should only an imaginary world be a good one? But as people toting luggage hurried past me, including one wide eyed kid with 'drafted' written all over his face together with weeping girlfriend in tow, I couldn't do it.

I kept seeing an image of Nate in court, all the cops and lawyers making out that he was some big time dealer and him just asking what happened. Even if he healed up good, remembered everything, told them it was all down to me, if I was gone and he was there…that was all they would care about.

It would be pointless to rat on Davey; Tim might think he was some stupid hick, but I knew from Dallas that those rodeo boys were as tough as they came. He was probably already across the state line before the smoke from The Dingo had died down. He could do what I was desperate to: go on with his life quite happily, without ever coming back to Tulsa.

But still I came back to that picture in my head, of Nate taking the fall without even remembering why.

I sat for a while, on a bench out of the way, thinking. Thinking about something Ponyboy had said to me, after he'd had to go to court. He'd wanted to say that he'd killed the Soc. I didn't get it at the time, because I knew, like everyone else, that Johnny had been the one with a blade, Johnny had been the one did the so-called crime. And maybe I still didn't get why Pony felt all the things he felt, but I thought I understood now why he wanted to take the blame _from_ Johnny.

Shouldering my bag, I walked away from the bus station. I walked home, aware of the irony. Tried to tell myself it was only because there was no point turning myself in with a loaded wallet, I might as well put Stella's money back. And I didn't think they'd let me take my stuff to Girls Town. I wasn't sure what you had to wear in the reformatory, but it wouldn't include eyeliner and frosted lipstick.

Stop.

I couldn't let myself think like that. That one cop had been okay. Maybe…

Ducking around in back, like always, my heart lifted unexpectedly when I saw the door slightly open. If Stella was back, maybe she could think of some workaround to clear Nate and still save me. Mother of the Year she wasn't, but no one could say she wasn't an excellent grifter. Maybe she even had an attorney onside. Something had kept her from being hauled in, despite the stream of men she worked through.

It never occurred to me it wouldn't be her. I pulled up short at the sight of two people lounging in the front room. They stood up, moved quickly between me and the two exits.

Tom and Jerry. The wanna-be hoods, not so wanna-be, no more. Definitely not so twitchy this time. In fact, downright swaggering. And without their jackets, the matching tattoos on their arms stood out. Tigers' heads. What else?

"Hey, babe," said the taller one. "How's your boyfriend's headache?"

Neither of them smiled.

I let fly a couple of choice things and hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. My heart raced but my mind sadly failed to copy it; all I could think was, ' _should've got on that bus'_.

"Fucker can run," said Tom, almost admiringly. "Shame we never got the goods off him, before the uniforms showed. Still, you can help us with some 'compensation', right, doll?"

The timings from last night, from forever. These two must've been waiting out back for Wes to flee the fire. His 'accident' was nothing to do with the building collapsing. And how long since they pretended to be customers? How long were the Tigers watching me?

"Screw your 'compensation'. The Dingo wasn't never your turf," I blustered.

"Wasn't nobody's, and that's how Tony liked it." Jerry said. He fingered a discarded blouse that lay on the back of an armchair. One of Stella's satiny things. "You wanna do the math, work out what you owe us? Maybe you could work some of it off, family-style..."

I swallowed, thinking about Stella's shoebox. Thinking that this probably wasn't going to be about just money now. As I opened my mouth, to say what I had no clue, the door to the kitchen flew open behind the taller guy.

"The fuck's going on here?" Wes looked rough; bloodshot eyes the most obvious sign of what must have been a massive hangover. The second he took in the situation, he made to reach for his back pocket.

Jerry lunged at me, grabbing my arm, yanking me to him as Tom launched himself at Wes.

I found myself hurled back onto the couch as the second Tiger joined in, finding space to punch Wes, around his partner's fists. Two on one was never going to end well. My eyes flicked around the room, for something I could hit one of the Tigers with.

"Run, Lainey!" Wes rasped, between hits. He twisted, shoving his body weight at Jerry, with enough momentum to send the guy backwards over the coffee table with a crash. Wes just about kept his balance but, before he could turn around, a blade appeared in the tall Tiger's hand. And I ran.

I ran, not out the back door, but to Stella's room. Stella's closet. The shoebox on the back shelf, where she kept more than cash. So much more. Maybe fifteen steps there. The same back. And I ran. I fucking _ran_.

How long was I gone? Seconds?

I wasn't quick enough.

Back in the living room, the world tilted around me, because Wes was staggering backwards, a hand pressed to his side and that hand turning red as blood leaked between his fingers. Out the corner of my eye I was aware that Jerry was motionless on the floor, his head resting on the fire surround. But Tom was still advancing on Wes, screaming his anger, flicking his bloodstained switch at him in sharp, urgent movements.

Wes's knees gave out as he bumped the couch and he fell back onto the cushions with a groan, unable to hide the pain the landing caused him, his whole arm clutching his middle. Tom snickered.

"Stop!" I yelled, my arm outstretched, hand shaking, fingers already cramping as I pointed the pistol at him. He pulled up short.

Then he smirked. "You gonna shoot me, girly?" He waved his blade around in a cruel imitation of my nervous trembling. And he walked towards me.

The gunshot frightened me, the pistol jerking in my hand like a live thing.

"Fuck me!" I seemed to have surprised even Tom. He recovered well though, with a quick glance at the hole in the wall behind him. Then in one smooth move he tossed his blade into his left hand, reached out with his right and slapped the gun out of my grip, following through with a backhander across my face.

I ducked, arm up over my face, which is what I always did when Stella hit me, and the sound of the gunshot echoed in my ears again.

Only it wasn't an echo.

The Tiger hit the floor. Didn't move. Didn't breath.

Straightening up, I stared across at Wes, who was on his feet—albeit shakily—and holding the gun. "Now will you run?" he said, the words costing him a deal of breath that he didn't seem to have. He wobbled. "I mean it. Get out of here."

I grabbed his elbow and steered him to the couch. He didn't seem to notice that I took the gun from him. He was sweating, his face pale, but his eyes searched mine.

"You 'kay?" he gasped.

The Tiger's ring must've caught my lip, because I found out it was bleeding when I tried to smile. "Everything's okay," I said, reaching for the phone. Most likely, one of the neighbors would've called the cops already over the gunshots, but I wasn't about to leave it to chance that an ambulance would show.

As I spoke quickly, giving the address, Wes swore with the effort of lifting up his T shirt to try and inspect his side. His face got kind of panicky, and he struggled even more to breath normally.

I scooped up Stella's blouse.

"It's okay," I told Wes again, kneeling next to him. "You're gonna be okay." I laid my head briefly on his shoulder, getting my shit together, getting up some courage, something like that. "But you're gonna let me clean this up, y'hear?"

He frowned at me.

"This is all down to me. All of it. And I'mma take care of it." Maybe I'd tell him, one day, that I'd already made my mind up to do that for Nate. The Tigers turning up here only made my whole confession stronger. But while Wes hadn't been around and should be safe from the whole drugs fiasco, I knew how the fuzz worked, well enough. If he could've booked it, I'd have made him. As it was... I leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his lips. "I ain't got no record. You just got out. You know how this goes."

He shook his head.

I shook mine right back. "I'mma tell 'em you was already unconscious when I shot him. You make me a liar and we both go down. Where's the sense in that?"

He was already close enough to passing out that, right on cue, his eyes closed. I counted his next three breaths before I wiped every bit of the gun with Stella's blouse, then put my fingerprints back all over it, laying it down well away from the couch.

As I wadded up the blouse and pressed it to Wes's side, a siren cut through the air. Not unusual around here, but this time it wouldn't be carrying on past. The back door was still open, I figured they'd find us quick enough.


	14. Chapter 14

The new kid was scared. They mostly are. Either they don't understand why they were sent here, or their lives have been so crappy they're just expecting more shit to be heaped on top of 'em. Trust don't come natural any more.

I could dig that.

I was the new girl once.

 **xxXxx**

It was freakishly quiet in the room, despite how busy all the hallways were in the rest of the courthouse building. Like the door that shut behind me was real thick, or closed up real tight.

Like they were trying to get you used to being in a cell.

Although cells never had thick carpet and dark wood furniture; a long polished table with three people lined up and facing me, all neat grey hair and Socy clothes, staring at me like I'd interrupted their coffee and chat.

The table freaked me the hell out. I'd been expecting a courtroom, like in the movies. A dock, somewhere for witnesses to sit while they stuck the knife in, told everyone what I'd done, what I was. These stiffs looked like they were waiting on someone to bring their lunch. I couldn't even tell which of 'em was the judge, although there was only one old guy, so if I'd hadda place a bet my money would have been on him.

"Elaine, why don't you sit here." The woman in the middle pointed to a chair, opposite her. At the table. I slid into it, warily.

"Ain't I supposed to have a lawyer? Someone on my side?"

The other woman, the one with the biggest pile of papers in front of her, smiled. "We're all on your side."

 **xxXxx**

' _Indoor-question cop' must've had a hall pass. He'd arrived in a separate car, after the lights and the sirens, after the uniforms were done shouting and both Wes and Jerry were bundled onto stretchers. Part of me had wanted to tell the ambulance guys to only concentrate on Wes._

 _Of course, the body on the floor was way more interesting to the fuzz. The body and then me, once I'd said what I said._

 _They'd let me sit back down on the couch, and I'd persuaded myself it was still warm from Wes lying there. That had to be a good sign, that he was warm, he'd stayed warm._

 _Indoor cop had taken one look at me and snapped out an order for someone to take off the cuffs._

 _The beat pig hesitated._

" _. . ." Not-wearing-a-uniform obviously trumped the rules regarding murderers. When my hands were free, he bent down, pulling something out of his pocket that turned out to be a handkerchief. He passed it to me, gesturing at my lip. I dabbed it, because he obviously expected me to, surprised to find that it was still bleeding. I rubbed it over my chin a little more forcefully, wondering what the hell kind of mess I was in._

" _You remember me, sweetie? Detective Felson."_

 _I nodded. Since yesterday? Did he think I was some kind of retard?_

" _You wanna tell me what went on here?"_

 _I took a deep breath. My eyes slid past him, to Tom's corpse._

 **xxXxx**

In the courtroom that wasn't, the various files and notepads seemed to contain my life story. Only maybe the freaks hadn't gotten around to reading everything yet because they asked me to "talk about myself a little".

I pressed my shoulder blades against the hard chair back, wondering how they expected me to trip up. _Keep it simple_ was the rule, when it came to lying effectively. That and _keep as close to the truth as possible._ Easy enough, all that I'd changed was who pulled the trigger for the second time. And if I hadn't screwed up the first shot, it would have all been gospel anyhow. Self-defense. That's all there was to it.

"I thought he'd killed my friend. I thought he was gonna—"

"Wait." The older woman smiled. Again. "That's not what I meant. We have your statement and the police report about that night. I want you to tell us about who you are." _Like some kind of lame-assed school essay?_ 'Who is Elaine Coleman?' Where do you see yourself in five years time? Ten? Ever? _Ain't that down to you, lady?_

My tongue had glued itself to the roof of my mouth. But there were rules for this too. I folded my arms, hardened my expression.

"I'm a greaser chick."

 **xxXxx**

 _Third time of telling. The story was starting to support itself, burned into my brain, falling out of my mouth, I barely had to think about what to say._

 _Detective Felson had apologized—apologized—that I had to go in the holding cell while they got their themselves organized. Now he was offering me soda I didn't want, like he had the previous time I'd been questioned by him. Maybe he was the retard. He didn't seem to be reacting right to what I'd told him. But he was buddied up now, some other cop sharing his side of the table. This one wanted to go over everything one more time, only now he was doing the telling and all I had to do was nod along._

" _So, you're the one responsible for the drug dealing, not McManus? And you shot the punk who firebombed the diner, not Gibson?" It was weird, thinking that Nate wasn't 'Nate' and Wes wasn't 'Wes' to them._

 _I shrug-nodded and he threw his pen down, grimacing at Felson. "This is bullshit."_

 _Felson leaned towards me. "Is someone threatening you? Making you say these things?" When I shook my head, he sighed. "Listen, sweetie. You don't owe these guys anything. If you tell us the truth, they won't be able to hurt you. I promise."_

" _They wouldn't hurt me. It was the Tigers tryin' to hurt me. I'm telling the truth."_

 _Newcop snorted. "Your kind wouldn't know the truth if it up 'n bit you!" My kind? He shot Felson a filthy look. "When was the last time any Northside trash punk offered themselves up voluntarily? I say we put the screws on the two in the hospital, get to the real story and stop wasting our time with this little...patsy." He changed the last word as Felson growled._

 _Now I was worried. I didn't know what Felson's deal was, I never had asked if he had a daughter my age, to explain why he seemed determined to help me out. But put together with Newcop's suspicious nature, it was getting to the point where I was going to walk away from everything I was trying to confess to._

" _Nate musta thought he was saving my purse," I said. "I mean, don't it seem freaky to you that he would keep his stash in a pocket book?" It wasn't my actual purse, with my wallet and all—that had gone up in flames, they'd told me—but it was a girly design all the same._

" _It was a bag, is all. Suede hippie tassles and—"_

"— _blue beads and a stain on one corner where my eyeliner leaked one time? Two pockets inside an' one with the zipper busted?" I interrupted before I reeled off the contents as near as I could remember; greens, reds, the lot. I could see I was getting the quantities right, as Newcop twitched, checking the paperwork in front of him._

 _I laughed and it sounded mighty realistic. "Man, the Tigers knew it was me, 's'why they came after me."_

" _Which still makes it self-defense." Felson, for the love of God, was still on my side._

 _I nodded. "I thought he'd killed Wes. I thought he was going to kill me." Round and round and round._

 **xxXxx**

The three of 'em were on a roll. Announcing that I was a greaser was apparently enough for them to start explaining _why_ that put me at the bottom of society's pile. Nothing I hadn't heard from various principals over the years, just not in such swanky surroundings.

"We understand that a difficult homelife can mean..."

"...insufficient parental guidance..."

"Outside influences of a criminal nature..."

I was awful tempted to start singing "Officer Krupke". Hadn't these freaks never seen West Side Story? _"I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived..."_ Gimme a break.

It took some effort to hide my smile and I shuffled on my seat a little. I wondered whose job it was to clean these places, with the fancy pictures and the carefully arranged flag in the corner. Pretty cushy number. The air in here was so still, I'd be willing to bet there was barely any dust raised.

"Disrupted schooling..."

"Several grades behind..."

I tuned back in, suddenly pissed off, because the trash talk had switched from the general to the personal.

"I ain't 'disadvantaged'. I got done with school is all," I protested.

The man cleared his throat. Pulled a sheet from the pile in front of him, then slid it across to me. "See if you agree with this assessment." They waited in silence as my eyes roamed over the unfamiliar words and tangled sentences. "Perhaps you could read the opening remarks to us?"

A wave of heat spread up from my throat. Well, fuck him.

"I don't see what 'how good I can read' has got to do with how long you send me away for." They blinked in surprise. "What?" I demanded, on a roll of my own. "So what if I'm... _unteachable_ "—one of the words that I had worked out jumped into my brain—"just decide how long I gotta serve and be done with it."

The man clenched his fist slowly and I tensed. "Nobody is unteachable," he growled. "Only bad teachers say that."

Huh?

"Do you remember where you went to school for second grade?" He looked up, snatching back the paper that I couldn't read. I shrugged. "How about fifth?" He flicked the cardboard folder as he shoved the piece of paper back. "Your records are incomplete."

New houses, new names to go with them. Sometimes when we left, it was dark and cold, and all I wanted to do was lay my head down on the bus seat.

"We moved."

The paper-stack woman nodded, like she was deciding something, then asked the other two to 'give her a moment' with me. They paced over the soft carpet to the door, without arguing.

"Elaine... _Lainey_ , is that what you prefer to be called?" My shoulders seemed to be getting a lot of exercise. I paused, mid-shrug because she raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were a real pale blue, almost grey, but not soft-looking, and she kept them on me as she spoke. "You are very close to a fork in the road. A choice about where your life might go. I want you to understand that we are trying to help you make the right choice."

"Me?" I scoffed. "Ain't you making all the decisions? Ain't you got me all typed up in there?"

"Would it surprise you to know that not everything in here is negative? We have some character details, 'references' if you like, from people who came forward on your behalf. A Mr Curtis, for one—"

"Darry?" _Darry ratted on me?_

She ran a finger down the page. "...Darrel Curtis, yes. Also—" She blinked, then smiled. "Someone by the name of _Sodapop_ Curtis? They told us some of the difficulties you've faced. That you lost some close friends, that you—"

Stop.

"What's it matter?" I interrupted before she could go into detail, flicked my hand at the folders and papers. "What's any of it matter?"

"Your mother's lifestyle must have been...difficult for you. Possibly even dangerous."

Difficult.

Dangerous.

Dallas and the wedge under the door. " _Who we tryin' a keep out, doll?"_

Stop.

I held my breath.

Stopstopstop.

"But it doesn't have to be that way anymore. And once you're an adult, I'd like to think—"

"What? Why? How old will I be when I get out?" I wasn't used to thinking of myself as _only_ sixteen. Most of the boys I knew went away for months, not years. But then most of them were car thieves, or vandals, or run-of-the-mill menaces to society. I was a drug-dealing killer, even if half my rep was a fiction.

"We want to offer you the opportunity to change your life around. To live in a different place, to go back to school."

I squinted suspiciously. "Are you saying I ain't gonna be locked up?"

"Do you particularly want to go to the reformatory?" _Was that some kind of trick question?_ I felt like I was in some kind of trap. "We want to offer you an alternative. We have a program in place at the Meadowsweet Children's Home—"

" _Children_ 's home? I ain't a kid!"

She moved her hand from the papers, reaching across to me, like she wanted to touch me only the table was too wide and I was too far back in my chair anyhow. "Lainey. Let us help."

 **xxXxx**

Turned out the home was run by do-gooders. I wasn't even surprised.

"I ain't got religion. You can't make me believe in nothin'!" I told 'em straight, on my first day.

Turned out, being saved wasn't nothing to do with the Sunday morning church services.

"This place is _nice_." Ponyboy made no effort to disguise his complete shock, as we walked around the gardens, between the three huge buildings that made up the place. Darry had made him wear a dress shirt, like his own. But Darry had stayed back, talking to the house mother, letting Pony bombard me with all his news.

"You didn't need to drive all the way out here." I was torn between being embarrassed and weirdly shy that they had. Sunday afternoons were for visitors, but only after the first six weeks. Some kind of reward, for toeing the line and not trashing the place—or, in my case, for not cussing in front of the little kids, which was my particular 'target'. That and wearing the lame knee-length skirts they gave me.

Pony climbed up on the fence, looking out at the orchard and the farm, where the older boys got to work. "I thought it might be more like Oliver Twist." I didn't know what that was, but it seemed to amuse him. He asked me if I was back in school, for real.

"Yeah. But only here, not like a real high school." I didn't tell him what grade the shit was, that they had me working through, it was too embarrassing. I doubted I would ever graduate, and maybe that was the plan—to keep me here forever, repeating and repeating.

My 'sentence' was real enough. I had to stay here until the court lady—I never did work out if she was the judge or not—thought I was turned around from my delinquent life. Or whatever. The fact was, they'd told me Stella had skipped town again, so I figured I might as well take advantage of their clean sheets and three meals a day. Where else was I gonna live? Maybe I could convince myself it was like a vacation. Sharing a dorm with a bunch of little girls—I was about the oldest in the place—was still better than some of the things I'd heard about being locked up in Girls Town. If they wanted to experiment with turning my life around, maybe I could sit through a few remedial classes.

Ponyboy asked, though, what books I was studying, for English. And then he offered to bring me any notes he had 'still lying around'.

"Or maybe I could mail 'em? Do they let you have mail? Do they check it?"

I had no idea. Who cared where I was, these days? I hadn't even known to expect him and Darry.

He nodded. "Hmm. Yeah. Let's test that. I'll mail you some stuff on Steinbeck, you let me know if they opened the envelope, when I come see you again."

"Why the he-heck does it matter?" Damn, but they were winning. But only because some of the kids were real little. I didn't want them copying anything bad that came out my mouth.

Glancing around, although there was no one near—some of the kids were throwing a ball, a bit further back, near the main house—Pony pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Save me playing mailman, if he can write to you direct."

Turned out Wes was no better a letter writer than me. And no better at picking postcards.

 **xxXxx**

 **Three years later**

I never would have put money on wanting to stay in a place that I'd had no part in choosing for myself. But when I turned eighteen—and I never had gotten any school certificate. Just a whole set of practical skills that crept up on me, without my even noticing—and they asked me if I wanted to work at the children's home, swap my dorm room for an assistant's badge, I said 'yes'.

Wes still had a year to go at that point, and he was talking about staying in the Army, making a long term thing of it. He hadn't quite asked me to up sticks and follow him, but then he hadn't quite asked me to wait in the first place, and both of us were happy enough that it happened anyhow.

In the meantime, I was...what? Nursemaid, playmate, cleaner, dresser, hairbrusher—

One thing about every imaginary life I'd ever dreamed up, I'd never made myself into a big sister. Never put myself in that position. When I'd so desperately wanted to be part of the Curtis family, I still saw me and Ponyboy on a level. Besides, it was never about brothers and sisters, it was about Mrs. C. and what she represented; safety, comfort. Love.

It took me a little time to recognize it, when it eventually came my way.

And being on the other side, being 'staff' instead of 'inmate' I was sometimes frustrated at how much it was still missing in so many lives. Oh, believe me, the little kids could be annoying as all get out. Especially the ones with problems. They were noisy, messy, sometimes destructive.

But mostly they were scared.

"Hey," I held out my hand to the new kid with the wide eyes. "It's okay. How about I show you where you're gonna sleep, huh? Then we can see if there are some cookies going." She bit her lip, still nervous. I smiled. "It's okay. You're home now."

 **The End**

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you, if you stuck it out this far. I know the posting schedule has been erratic!**

 **I found some evidence about changing attitudes to delinquency at the time, enough that a hopeful ending for Lainey wasn't too fantastical.**


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